Non game related Tech help.

[Zivon23]

My puter crashed,  Lost almost everything.  Now, my problem is my USB's aren't working.  There is power to them...ie I can power someting that powers off of usb ports...mp3 players, psp, etc.  However, when I try to hook up my camera, there is nothing.  The computer doesn't acknowledge the "external Drive".  I know...Drivers.  All my drivers are up to date.  Now where should I look?

Perplexed,

~Z23~

[stumpy]

I'm not an expert on drivers and that's certainly a likely source of issues, but USB drivers are usually included with the OS these days, so it's tough to be sure they are the problem here. Do other, non-storage devices (like a USB mouse/keyboard) work on the PC?

I also had a USB drive disappear when a crash occurred while the drive was being written to. The drive was there if I checked the hardware in the Control Panel, but it didn't show up in My Computer because the formatting was fargled and Windows offered to reformat the drive. You might want to check whether the physical drive shows up in Computer Managment under the drives applet.

I have had USB ports go bad. I had one where the connector developed a crack in the solder joint to the motherboard and I had to resolder it myself. I also had one that just quit working period; it might have been fried by some sort of power spike. I would double check the USB devices on another PC to make sure they aren't the issue and then test each of the USB ports on the PC where you're having trouble to see if some of them are working.

Also, I have had very iffy behavior from USB "hubs" that turn one USB port on your PC into several. If you are using one, it's worth trying to connect the devices directly to the PC's USB ports to eliminate the hub as a source of problems.

[Zivon23]

ok.....Here's the deal as far as my USB ports and computer:

It is a HP 705a Desktop that is running Windows XP Home.  It has 2 CD/DVD Drives; Smartmedia/xD, MMC/sd/CompactFlash I/II, MS/MS PRO card readers; USB 2.0 in the front.  It has 6 USB ports in the back.  I am using a serial keyboard and serial mouse.  My computer is not recognizing ANY of the afformentioned items except CD/dvd Drives and mouse Keyboard. 

I used to click on the My Computer Icon and get C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K, etc drives.  Now I click on My Computer and all it shows is C and D Drives.  If I put my Mass Storage Flash drive into one of the USB ports, it lights up, so it is getting power, so I know the USB ports are good, however the computer doesn't recognize the exsistance of the USBs.  Motherboard/BIOS chipsets are up to date as well as ALL Drivers for this computer.  In the Device Manager, Everything is working ok. 

I recently installed PC Alert 4 From MSI(Maker of my motherboard).  PCA4 gives you info on the puter like temp, fan speed, and Voltage.
Voltage areas that are reported are: 1.2-2.5(Vcore)1.35, 2.5-4.5(3.3v)3.04, 4.5-5.5(+5v)4.92, 10.0-13.0(+12v)1.98.  Coloured numbers represent current readings.  As you can see, my 10-13v reading is at a bit over 10%.  Could this be why the puter is not "seeing" the USB ports?

[Green Hornet]

Try doing a system restore to before the problem started.  Possible an update could have conflicted with a driver.