CX2720 - USB Ports

Good morning,

I have a laptop here which has three USB ports and apparently something isn't working correctly. If I plug ANY flash drive into any one of my USB ports they don't show up in my computer/explorer. A printer works fine as well as webcam or other USB cords, but my flash drive isn't working. This is bad for me considering I am a college student and all my work is on my flash drive.

If I use a computer at school or a friends computer my flash drive is recognized but just recently it stopped. Can anyone help me out here? The few things I knew to do I have tried. I did try changing the drive letter but it doesn't show up in disk management. So that's a no go. I tried restarting the computer and that didnt work either. I dont get it.

There is no message in Windows. Nothing that shows it's recognized (ie. the bubble window i use to get to say there was a drive just plugged in, etc). The only thing I get when I plug it in is the icon at the far right of the taskbar that you click to 'safely remove the hardware.' That's it.

And when I check disk manager and do a rescan disk option it still shows nothing.

I did just now try to shut the computer down, plug in the flash drive and THEN check to see if it's recognized. No go there. *frazzled*


Thanks,
Michael

To my knowledge, I always safely remove the device. I clickon the appropriate but on the task bar and when it tells me it can safely be removed, I do so. I wont say that I do it 100% of the time because I'm sure that there have been times I forget or I'm in a hurry. I don't know.

I don't see this icon that you were talking about. Only the 'safely remove hardware' icon.

Any suggestion on how I can fix this problem?

Michael.

Positive. I've tried the flash drive(s) in all three USB ports. All a no-go. But if I plug any other USB device EXCEPT a flash drive into ANY of these same ports than all is well and that particular equipment runs just fine.

yeah mine definitely doesn't look like that at all. mine is a green arrow on top of and pointing away from what looks like a flash drive or whatnot. that is definitely there anytime anything USB device is plugged in. i know how to operate this feature.

what i'm trying to figure out is... why will ANY USB device work with my laptop in ANY of the three USB ports I have but none of my FLASH drives will. Not a single one. They're not even detectable. They don't show up at all in my computer or explorer. But those same flash drives work in my other computers.

Gateway TA6 / CX2720

Truthfully I don't know what other info you would like regarding the laptop. I'd be happy to provide it tho if you need anything else. Just let me know.

Yes, I agree that it is extremlely strange. If u have LogMeIn you are more than welcome to remote into this desktop to see for yourself. It's that strange. I would let someone willing to assist remote in for sure just to prove it's legitimacy, haha!

To answer the question(s) tho: I have tried numerous (literally) flash drives other than mine. I borrowed three from my neighbors on either side of me and two from friends at school. It's ridiculous. But ANY other USB device I own seems to work absolutely swell (webcam, printer, digital cam, scanner, mp3 player, card-reader...all these work, I've tried it all day long).

I have most definitely considered a re-install in hopes of it working but I'm afraid that's all I'm going to have are hopes. I'm wondering if that'll even fix the issue at hand at all. But I do have XP and most of my programs already here with me. It would just be time consuming, that's all.

Michael

It's been going on for several days now. I did attempt to do a system restore - didn't work. at all. I'm running XP SP3.

I shut both my desktop and laptop down everynight except on Saturdays when the maintenance runs its deal. And today alone, I would imagine I've restarted my laptop more times than I would normally restart it in an entire month! lol.

Yeah, I'm going to just scrub it and be done. I burned everything I wanted to keep onto cd and made sure it worked properly. The only other thing I can think to do is to reinstall.

This just blows my mind because I've never heard of or seen this happen to anyone before...ever. Oh well. Computers, computers, computers. Can't live with 'em...unfortunately we're to the point where we can't live without 'em...almost.

Thanks for all the assistance and willingness to help. I appreciate it very much.