I’ve had the dreaded Windows Vista for exactly a year now and I just had my first real “issue” with the OS. It was the dreaded Windows Vista “USB Device Not Recognized” error that seemed to appear after a quick power blip in my home.
For those of you not familiar with the famous Windows Vista USB Device Not Recognized error, I’ll give you a quick synopsis: you are using Windows Vista and minding your own business when suddenly a little pop-up message appears and tell you, surprise! you have a “USB Device Not Recognized!” There’s an annoying little bell that rings and you click on the stupid pop-up bubble and get.. well… nothing.
At least for me I saw nothing. And here’s the problem: you can’t find anything wrong so you can’t actually fix anything. Windows Vista doesn’t tell you which USB device is not recognized, which USB port has the problem or what it thinks is happening. The error message “USB Device Not Recognized” is just about completely meaningless. But every 30 seconds the bubble pops up again with that annoying little bell.
So I did what I do whenever I hear a discouraging sound coming from my car engine: I turned up the volume on my iTunes and promptly forgot about the message. Eventually I got smart and just turned the Windows Alert sound off.
After a few days the error was still popping up and though I couldn’t hear the bell, the bubble was troubling me. Other people have spent hours searching through documentation and reloading Windows Vista from scratch and downloading USB drivers. I am far too lazy to do that anymore, so I just went searching on the internet for the stupidest most implausibly easy solution I could find.
And it worked.
The solution is simple:
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1. Unplug (not just turn off) you PC.
2. Unplug all your USB devices from your PC (and, heck, any power supplies as well)
3. Wait 30 minutes or more.
4. Plug in your essential USB devices (keyboard, mouse).
5. Plug in your PC, turn it on.
6. Pop in the rest of your USB devices.
Ta-da, your Windows Vista USB Device Not Recognized Error is solved. This worked for me. I actually did it once without unplugging the USB devices and the problem went away for about three days and then appeared again. I did it again, taking out all my USB devices and I’ve been going for a couple weeks now with no problem.
I thought about trying to sell some sort of wacky device that would help you pull the plug out of your computer, much like my iPad invention for fixing that dreaded sad iPod icon. But then I realized: I’m too lazy for that, too.
Instead you can just thank me with large unmarked bills.
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All Laptops please invest in a powered hub.. Many laptops are using underpowered conections even today with so many USB devices out there (I personally love that). Even desktop machines will have power problems if the power supply is a bit underpowered (300 watt). I have a 450 watt powerr supply and I still added a 5 port powered usb hub and everything runs great (7 usb devices and adding more all the time).
cool bro this work like magic i think microsoft will now have to take cre about their products
Just an update. I purchased a Syba 4 port usb express card to work around this problem. My computer give the same message regarding failing to recognize the device. So, this did NOT fix my problem. I still have no USB connectivity.
Ok well first off I want to explain from experience why this is happening… really beleive it or not it is you the users fault. See mostly this happens with the mouse. Why the mouse and why is it your fault you ask.. Well its simple. Its because of static electricity. I found this out because the past week I have been dealing with this issue alot and well it is cold where i live so i wear a coat. Now when i take my coat off from taking an outside smoke break I noticed i have a static discharge to my mouse then the problem occurs.
How to fix it well simply let you computer do a power discharge.. if it is a desk top simply unplug it for 30 mins and then restart it should be solved if it is a laptop turn it off leave the power cable in and take the battery out then take out the power cable replace the battery then reboot.
Amazing! I have a Vista 64 bit home version Toshiba and this worked where everything else I found on the net. Thank You!!!
OK, I tried what Tom said but it didn’t work at first, so I decided to read more of what others said and noticed the battery thing. So this is what I did, I unplugged all the USB devices connected and the power supplies then shut my laptop down. Then I took the battery out and put it back in within seconds, and allowed the computer to have power on with all the cables and devices reconnected. And that’s all, that bubble doesn’t appear any more.
unbelievable!! it worked!
I spent so many hours, and still couldn’t figure out.
thank you so much!
not working for me is this because i have a laptop
Thank you so much for your article. I was having the same issue on my toshiba laptop and tried all suggestions with no success. Your solution worked!
Ok.
So I tried this out, your cycling of the power and …
IT WORKED!
Oh my goodness, I was so relieved … it is a company laptop, and you have saved me hours of worry and troubleshooting time … much thanks …
So, if you encounter this in Vista 64 on a laptop …
1. Attach all your devices
2. Shut down the computer
3. Remove the devices
4. Remove the plug, then the battery
5. Wait 60 – 360 seconds
6. Turn back on and magic happens!
Cheers All!
Thanks!
I thought this was a joke but i tried it, and it worked. VAIO was turned off for 30 mins and now USB works again.
Wow.
Excellent. After all of the attempts I made to revive the mouse. Even ordered a new mouse. Your method is simply superb. A complete reset of the computer helped. Thanks a lot for your post.
Removing the battery on my Sony VGN-SR93JS while the laptop was turned off worked! After reboot, my internally-connected fingerprint reader, which I was nearly certain was fried, came back to life!!!! No more “USB not recognized” pop-up boxes. Just brilliant! Many Thanks
Thanks a lot!
It really works and it saved my day.
Keep up with the good work.
Sir, you are an absolute genius. Thank you so much. Had I gone back to the store we recently bought our laptop from they would have no doubt told us to restore it to factory settings (don’t you just love doing that!!!). If only all fixes were this easy life would be better.
Thanks again
Alan
alright i have that problem but i am using a laptop
Such a simple solution and it works.
Thanks very much for posting this, completely sorted several bugs that were taking place and finally stopped the annoying pop up box that has been going on for a couple of weeks.
If your having problems like this then give it a try, you have nothing to loose but about 5 minutes.
Peter
Thank you so much..
It really WORKED for me.
I found that one day my Sony cyber shot stopped working with the USB not recognized problem on my HP Pavilion. Weird things is, we use mobile broadband which connects via USB, and if i unplug that, then the Sony device is recognized again. Same thing for my Web cam: only one USB device is recognized at a time, it doesn’t matter which one. I’ve tried all the options via MS website, I’ve done the unplug thing, I’ve restored XP a dozen times, I’ve uninstalled drivers and to no avail. It means i can’t Skype cos i need to connect via USB for both the broadband and the camera! Very frustrating
thanks man thank you very much
Thank you so much for posting. It really does the trick and it saved me for a nerve brake down for sure……!
Thanks mate
It is so unclear to me about the step 1.
Do you need to switch off your computer???
Please can somebody provide more informtion from A to Z the way you did guys??
Amazing. My Dell Laptop started displaying this message 3 days ago with nothing plugged into my USB ports. It wouldn’t recognize my Seagate Freeagent backup drive ( although it recognized and worked with a flash drive ). When I saw your website I thought this is a scam and he’ll want me to by some software. Took the battery out for 50 mins and vuwalla (sp) no more error messages and my Freeagent is backing up my hard drive right now. Thanks for saving me lots of time
Jim
What if the USB that cannot be recognized is your Wireless USB adapter?! ): It doesn’t work on my laptop either when I plug it in. I have the CD to download it and the popup just keeps popping up.
If anyone can help, please do so!
Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks for the tip, it worked perfectly! You made my day.
Regards
Thanks ….. it worked
Well this is the second time I have had this issue.. the last time… wow, jumped through hoops and made it work.. copied files.. downloaded files.. attempted reloading.. and in retrospect, probably what worked was having the machine powered off and battery out for several hours…
Thanks for the real answer.. what a B.S. issue and fix.. what is the Root Cause.. and How to avoid would be nice from our friends at MS…
Thanks..
B.
Wow, I can’t believe that worked! I was all out of ideas. Thanks!
Thank you very much and I am adding to this list of growing endorsements. Unplugged everything including the battery from HP laptop for over 30 minutes and now all the ports/devices are functioning as per normal.
Well, it didn’t work for me.
I have a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop and I suspect the problem was caused by disconnecting the drive while the computer was running. I could not find a prompt to “safely remove the device,” so I just disconnected it. Possibly the problem could have been avoided if I would have shut down the computer before disconnecting. I have tried all of the Microsoft “fixes” as well as the one posted here. Any more ideas?
Just read more of the posts and see that my iPod Touch could also be a culprit. Could this be some sort of coercion to change to a MAC? This could be the “straw that breaks the back” of this almost 30-yr veteran of PCs to make the switch.
i accidently touched the cable of my hard drive whilst it was copying data, which made it loose and it stopped mid-way. after that, the whole entire hard drive doesn’t respond at all… the malfunction window pops-up when the hard drive is plugged in. im going to try out this method, but is there any other way to fix this problem?
thanks beforehand
when i attach my external hard drive,the same pop up appears for any computer or laptop i attach.i tried it even at my friends place still its the same…plzz help me..
It works….. w e i r d and yes it has to do with static (in our case a power snap off and then on again). Thanks a million
the following worked for me when I got the same problem in Vista…
Goto Control Panel\Device Manager.
Select the “Universal Serial Bus controllers”.
Right click and uninstall all the Universal Host Controllers.
In the “Confirm Device Uninstall” dialog, DO NOT select the “Delete the driver software…” option.
Once done, reboot the machine. Vista will reinstall the USB drivers and the problem should be cleared.
You are a star. I was about to go beserk.
Thanks!!! It’s a miracle!
You are a life saver.
Worked for me – I the deleted the INFCACHE.1 file and restarted – that did NOT do the job.
Unplugged laptop, unplugged USB’s (Hard Drive and the mouse- which was the one that stopped working) turn laptop off and took out the battery. Half an hour later, turned on the laptop- with USB’s connected, and it worked.
Thanks.
I miss my fountain pen
You saved my sanity. Thank you!!!
dude … you rocks !! my usbs suddenly stopped working and i spend 1 hour of hopeless finding the solution and then i found yours … and i was like “hmm i have tried a lots … lets try this one aswell” and it worked perfectly for me … ty very much ^^
High praise for the fix, worked perfectly.
Kudos to this site.
Didn’t work for me
I had to turn off/on my Galaxy S for it would connect. Everything else on USB was working but not the old “smart” phone.
doesnt work.
i’m having thoughts that most of these thank you comments are fake or made by the author himself.
can you at least provide a better solution? coz it doesnt work at all
Thanks and kudos!!! This ‘too good to be true’ solution is still working after all these years! Maybe someone should let Microsoft in on the big ‘secret’?
After trying to follow all of these threads and trying countless times to turn it on and off I decided to look at the offending 2 drives to check the power consumption….12v & 2A….no wonder the power USB ports couldn’t handle them, they were all stated as 5oomA per port….plugged them directly into PC and they were up and running 1st time….power issues all along.
Hope this helps some of you..bon chance
Steve