SennSational

Of course, my games had to be on the drive that doesn’t work…

triffic - Solitaire and Minesweeper only keep one occupied for so long (and I suck at chess)…Mahjong it is then

So I finally plucked up the courage to insert a USB device last night. Granted, it was only my portable card reader (which I use when placing items on my SD card for the IPAQ), but still, it worked.

Well, I say it worked, I intended to copy all four Rick Cook Wizards Bane novels (a must read), I extracted from from my RAR file straight onto the SD Card, chose to ‘Safely Remove Hardware’, got into bed, plopped the card in the IPAQ and hey presto! No books…

Ho hum, I’m wanting to identify the problem as an Id10T (eye, dee, ten ,tee) problem rather than USB - I know, I’m desperate to erase any memory of the USB drama…

Vista has been reinstalled [with a little drama], everything appears to have core functionality and tonight is the night I check out my USB devices. I know I could have done it last night, but wedding plans got in the way and it took 4 hours to install the damn thing [there may have been a bijou nap in the middle].

Here’s a handy little console app [freeware with source!] that enumerates all buses and attempts to inform you what ‘Unknown Device’ might actually be. It appears to have been around a while and hopefully will stick around for some time.

PCI 32 - Direct Link
PCI 32 - Home Page

This I have to try!

I’m getting desperate now, I know because I saw a filename that I believe I have dramas with (usbehci.sys) and I’m going to try this patch later! [I could apply it now, but I kind of need to be at home to install devices]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928631/en-us

Rather than recovering the Vista driver database using the steps outlined below, you could always grab the following tool:

http://www.securevista.net/2007/05/vista-right-click-own-all-directories.html

It adds ‘Own’ to the context menu. This means you only need to do the following to achieve the same as mentioned below:

From Windows:

1. Click the orb and type %systemroot%\inf
2. On the following files, right-click, select ‘Own’ then deleteDRVINDEX.DAT
   INFPUB.DAT
   INFSTOR.DAT
   INFSTRNG.DAT
   INFCACHE.*
   SETUPAPI.*
   
3. Close the folder and restart Vista

Trying to repeatedly install and remove software and drivers supplied by other hardware manufacturers under non-US Vista x86/x64 versions [Does this mean en-AU, en-UK would be affected?], a WMI/OEM driver database corruption may occur.

As a result of this damage, you could have serious problems installing new devices such as a simple USB mouse, a DVD-ROM, a PS/2 keyboard and whatever is normally detected and initialized with standard Windows drivers. [This is the problem I am now having]

This problem has been classified by Microsoft as KB934637 and there are small fixes for both x86 and x64 versions, but they’re not available with WindowsUpdate and will be included in the first Vista Service Pack.

If you’re in urgent need to fix this issue, you should contact Microsoft Technical Support (if you purchased a retail/boxed Vista version) or your PC manufacturer (if you have a pre-installed OEM version).

Another workaround is to force Windows Vista rebuilding that database, because it’s not a pre-compiled file, but generated during Windows Vista setup process by reading all of the INF and PNF files located %systemroot%\INF folder of your system hard disk.

At the end of the setup process, the drivers database files are locked to prevent unauthorized access and you can’t delete/rename/move them, but OS does its access each time we add or remove new hardware and drivers, and it adds or removes some records and fields.

So here is what you have to do:

1. Insert your Vista setup DVD and boot your PC from that by pressing any key when prompted.
2. When it ask you for your language, be sure only to choose the one matching your current keyboard layout and click “Next”.
3. Windows is ready to install, you need to select the “REPAIR YOUR COMPUTER” option, in the lower left corner of the window.
4. System Recovery will look for installed operating systems, once your correct OS has been found, select it and then click “Next”.
5. A quick scan for common problems will start: if something wrong is found you’ll be prompted for an automatic system restore, that you shall abort by clicking the “Cancel” button.
6. Now you should see the “System Recovery Options” window, select “Command Prompt” and prepare for a tasty DOS session
7. Go in your system disk by typing C: (or the letter corresponding to your system disk, followed by a colon)
8. Reach your INF system folder by typing:CD %systemroot%\INF
9. Set a variable to let the file listing being sorted by extension (file type) and then by name, with folders grouped at the top by typing the following command:SET DIRCMD=/p /a /ogen
   
10. Now, let’s get the files list: type DIR and you should see an enormous amount of INF and PNF files, a bunch of subfolders and a few files having different extension and a really recent date. If this is the case, we’re nearly there…
11. Now for the ownership, enter each one of the following commands with care and being sure that your command prompt is pointing to %systemroot%\INF folder:DEL DRVINDEX.DAT
    DEL INFPUB.DAT
    DEL INFSTOR.DAT
    DEL INFSTRNG.DAT
    DEL INFCACHE.*
    DEL SETUPAPI.*
    
    As the files do not have +r +s set on attribs, you shouldn’t receive any errors.
12. When finished, type EXIT and the command prompt window will close itself.
13. Click the “RESTART” button and remove Vista Setup DVD from your optical drive. Now, by having completely destroyed the built-in database, Windows will launch its rebuild at the first time you’ll plug a new Plug’n'Play peripheral or when you’ll start the “Add new hardware” procedure in Control Panel.

I’d love to credit the original author, but having gone through so many links, my history is a nightmare to navigate.

NOTE: I am not responsible for any loss of functionality, data, time or sanity the above list may cause. You alone take full ownership of the problem. The steps listed may or may not result in frequent and lengthy periods of profanity…

Another useful MS link. A complete list of devmgmt.msc error codes and a possible cause for it.

I still have no external HDD, but hey, I’m learning so much [about googling]…

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123

Paging Dr. Driver, please pick up the white emergency telephone…

Another useful link to USB problems can be found here (USB Code 10), this is getting tedious, it really is. I’m currently trawling through a gazillion [exaggerate, me?] posts in microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices and I’m staggered by the amount of problems Vista appears to have with USB devices!

At least I’m not alone, they will assuredly need more padded rooms in asylums though as we all go slowly nuts, one poor chap has been having dramas since February…

[edit] Hmm, after reading the aforementioned page [yes, I posted before reading], it’s not that great, the advice is good, but it tells me to do what I already tried, which is to remove USB Root Hubs and USB Host Controllers from Device Manager then restart. It also links to an MS KB article about ‘General USB Troubleshooting in Windows XP‘.

Hmm,

Whilst digging around, I came across this page ‘USB Troubleshooting‘, and by all accounts, there are a number of useful tips on there.

Microsoft also has a tool called DevCon, it’s command line and allows for full hardware control! I especially like the look of ‘devcon remove @usb\*‘, which apparently will remove any USB device whatsoever…

The tool can be found here: DevCon

I also found another guide, this time from HP/Compaq about general USB troubleshooting in Vista:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_UKEN&docname=c00820197