Have a problem with the USB port on my laptop (win xp pro). It does not recognize the mouse or flash drive. The mouse doesn't show up in "mice and other pointing devices" section. There is one "unknown device" in the "USB controllers" section of the device manager. In addition to that there are four "USB Root Hub" devices, three "Intel 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller" and one "Intel 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller" devices in the "USB controllers" section of the device manager. Have tried to uninstall all USB controllers and hubs in the device manager and rebooting but it didn't help. I believe what caused this is plugging in an unsipported device into one of the USB ports. Will appreciate any ideas on how one can possibly resolve this issue. Thanks

you can try by plugging in the mouse into a different usb port. This will recognise the mouse and hopefully install drivers for it, if not, the mouse is probably dodgy. If that works, chances are that your usb port is not working.

You could also try installing the drivers for the unknown device that is in the device manager!

I believe this piece of software might help you further investigate the issue:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

Did your lap top come with a pre-installed version of Windows? If it didn't, and you installed it yourself, you might be lacking some motherboard drivers, though I can't see this being a problem in XP

yeah thats's right bro. 1 years ago i got some problem.

If you have your mouse device driver, here is what I would do :
1) go to the control pannel, hardware, and remove the "unknown device". No problem deleting it, it will come back after next
reboot.
2) Install your mouse driver.
3) replug the mouse. The settings should not conflict with the previous "unknown device", and should be seen as a mouse.

Of course, if you don't have the mouse driver, I would say, go the manufacturer site.

In order to see if your mouse is deficient, I would try booting on the Knoppix LiveCD, and see if you see the Linux KDE board with a working mouse. If yes, this means your whole hardware (mouse and USB ports) are working correctly and are compatible with the Knoppix drivers.

another diagnostic test would be to boot off the UBCD4win CD.

Hope this helped
Yordan

Thanks to everybody for your advice and suggestions!!!

Some more info on the issue. It is win xp pro sp2 (2002 version). The mouse and the flash drive worked totally fine several days ago and as of now they work fine on another laptop. The problem is that they are not recognized by Windows when plugged in.

When I plug in either of those devices into one of two available USB ports (USB Root Hub (2 ports)) I get the following message: "USB Device Not Recognized. One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it."

When I look at the unknown device in device manager it has a generic "libusbfl.sys" driver.

I believe I should have all the needed drivers in "c:\windows\system32\drivers" but the system can not recognize the device. I have tried to copy the "msmouse.inf", "mouclass.sys", and "mouhid.sys" files to a separate folder and point to it when running the "hardware update wizard" but it didn't help. I am getting the message "the specified location does not contain information about your hardware"

How do I install drivers for the unknown device? I have tried to "update driver" and going through the above "hardware update wizard". When pointed to the above folder (specific location) with the "msmouse.inf", "mouclass.sys", and "mouhid.sys" files I am getting the message that "cannot continue the hardware update wizard", "the wizard could not find a better match for your hardware than the software you currently have installed"

USBDeview shows that both devices worked properly before but when I plug in the mouse and select "display devices without drivers" it shows it as an unknown device.

So the question is how to make Windows recognize the mouse? I don't think I have a setup disk for the mouse as it is a basic microsoft optical wheel mouse... Will be grateful for your comments. Thanks

The mouse manufacturer should still give you the driver disc for the mouse. I'm surprised that they did not. Since it's Microsoft, try checking Microsoft's website. I have a Microsoft optical mouse and it did come with a driver.

xboxrulz

Can't believe it how simple the solution was! Was browsing through many posts where people discussed that USB ports went bad and one needs to change the mobo, etc. Was very lucky to come across this post:
see this link
/forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/582627-usb-suddenly-not-working-usb.html
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-...orking-usb.html
"Turning a switch off sure beats hacking the registry!"

Anyway, many thanks to everybody for their advice. I hope this information will prove to be helpful to others as well!

Nice post, Ijin. You are right, the answer is strangely simple, and almost incredible. And, you are right, nobody think about removing the power chord for physically resetting the USB devices.
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P.S. I slightly edited your post, putting between quotes the part copied from forums.techguy.org , which is more polite and meets the asta forum rules.