How To Fix USB Device Not Recognized Issues

Fixing USB Device Not Recognized Issues

When you plug your keyboard, USB mouse, camera or other USB device into your computer, are you getting the USB device not recognised message. USB is a very popular media interface nowadays, with virtually every third-party device utilising this technology.

For those individuals that use a lot of USB gadgets on their computers, it’s very likely that you have a USB hub, so that you can have even more devices connected to your computer at any one time. In most situations, this will work without any hiccups, but there are those odd occasions, when the computer fails to recognise the USB device. The thing that makes it even more perplexing is the fact that the ports appear to be working fine. Situations like, being able to charge your device, but not being able to access data from it, are common occurrences.

That said there are many different ways that you can tackle this problem. I have outlined a number of different solutions which I recommend that you attempt.

Unplug Computer System

Before you attempt any other method, the first thing you’ll want to do is the most obvious thing. If you’re lucky the problem you face may be a simple fix.

Just, shut down the computer, and then unplug the computer from the main socket. Keep in mind, that the most important aspect of this process is the unplugging, as most computer systems are still, in a sense, on, though not consuming much power, when connected to the mains.

The motherboard is the device that connects all your hardware devices together, making the computer what it is, the USB ports are but one of many features on it. Sometimes, the motherboard may malfunction, due to a power surge or several other things, in a situation like that, powering down the computer, is all that is required to fix any problems its going through.

Again, make sure you shut down the computer first, since you don’t want to lose any data in the process. Then unplug it from the main power socket, and leave it in that position for a couple of minutes, before plugging it back in. Hopefully, this should repair the problem.

Reinstall USB Drivers

The computers inability to recognise the USB device could be due to a corrupted device driver. In this particular situation, you may want to consider reinstalling the drivers. In order do to that, simply do the following:

1. First, boot into your computer with full administrative rights.

2. Then press Windows Key + R, and then type devmgmt.msc into the Run Command box and click on OK.

3. When Device Manager loads up, simply right click on the USB device and click on Uninstall.

Note: Make sure the USB device is connected to your computer, to ensure it appears in Device Manager.

4. Once you have successfully removed the drivers, restart your computer.

You should now reinstall them using the latest drivers available. Alternatively, you can just reinsert the device into the computer and it will reinstall the drivers from the cache folder.

Disconnect All USB Devices

Another thing that you may want to try is to disconnect all the USB devices connected to your computer, and then reboot it. Once the computer has successfully booted up, try connecting, only the device giving you problems, to your system.

The idea is to use this method to evaluate whether or not the problem is with the device or with your actual USB ports. So try connecting the device to all the available ports and then evaluate whether or not this rectifies the problem. If none of the ports are able to recognize the device, then it’s fair to assume, there is nothing wrong with your ports.

Connect Directly To Computer

A family member of mine had an issue very similar to this, which incidentally was being caused by a USB hub he was using. His computer only had three available USB ports on it, so he went out and purchased a USB hub, which allowed him to connect an additional 8 devices to his computer.

However, this decision that he made took its toll on his computer and it just suddenly started failing to recognise devices. After he disconnected the hub from his computer and connected the device directly to his computer, everything started to work correctly.

In his particular case, the power consumption generated by all the devices connected to the USB hub, exceeded the amount of power the hub was able to generate. In another situation, I experienced the exact opposite; I had to acquire a powered USB hub in order to use a device.

If you’re experiencing this problem on the latest operating systems, such as Windows 8/8.1, there is an actual fix, released by Microsoft that is capable of fixing this problem. Visit Microsoft’s official website and run a search for it.

Other Solutions

If all the methods above have failed to fix the problem, then there is a strong chance that the problem may be caused by the hardware itself. The best thing for you to do would be to try the device on a different computer and monitor whether or not it works. If not, then you’ll know for sure that there is something wrong with the device.

Different Machine

One solution that has proven to be quite effective at fixing this problem involves connecting the USB device to a different machine, and if it’s able to successfully recognize it, then eject it, using the correct procedure, then reconnect it to the original computer. I’ve seen this happen on a number of flash drives that were not unplugged properly from the computer that is no longer recognizing it. After the end user connects the device to another computer, then properly ejects it, the original computer suddenly starts to recognize it again.

Update the BIOS

Some users have had success at fixing this problem by updating their systems BIOS. Updating the BIOS is one solution that ordinarily I wouldn’t recommend, because of the risks to reward, that makes it simply not worth it. But if getting the USB device to work is extremely important to you then it may be something that you would want to try.

Within the BIOS it’s also possible for you to disable USB, so you could try disabling it, restarting your computer, and then re-enabling it again. Just make sure your motherboard has a PS2 port, if you do attempt to disable the USB, as you may not be able to use your computer, once you’ve disabled the USB via the BIOS, this is especially the case, if both your mouse and keyboard are connected to your computer through the USB.

--AUTHOR INFO—

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website http://www.compuchenna.co.uk/& Compuchenna.co.uk.