Doc_Brown on 22/2/2011 at 03:58
Here's the skinny:
While transfering some music files from my computer to my phone, the process froze up on me and I was left no choice but to force quit. I then attempted to safely remove the device before pulling the plug, but my computer tells me the device is in use and refuses. It keeps telling me this, no matter how long I wait, leaving me with no choice other than to pull the plug and hope for the best.
Well, the best is not what I got. Now whenever I attempt to hook my phone back up to my computer, I get the following message: "USB Device Not Recognized. One of the USB devices connected to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it." I had the phone checked out, and it can connect with other computers just fine, so the problem here has to be with the computer.
Anyone have any experience with this? It's not the end of the world, I know, but using my phone as an mp3 player was one of the main reasons I upgraded to a smartphone in the first place, and with all my songs on my computer...
Al_B on 22/2/2011 at 07:46
I've seen this before when a device isn't responding correctly to USB requests from the PC and can't be enumerated correctly. Have you tried powering down your computer fully and removing the plug to ensure that the USB hubs in your PC are reset? It's also worth trying other USB ports on your computer if you haven't already.
If that doesn't help can you plug the phone in until you get the "USB device not recognised" message, then go to the device manager? Once there, find the USB device with the error, double click on it and go to the "Details" tab. Select "Device Instance Id" from the list and post the value here?
Doc_Brown on 22/2/2011 at 17:40
I had tried powering down (and unplugging), as well as using the other USB ports, but none of that worked. As for the Device Instance ID... well, I'd love to, but that isn't one of the options listed under the drop down menu in the Details tab.
I'm running Vista, if that's any help.
Al_B on 22/2/2011 at 18:30
Yes, it does. Try "Hardware Ids" instead. It should be something like "USB\Vid_XXXX&Pid_YYYY" Where XXXX is the ID assigned to the vendor (usually the manufacturer) and Pid is the ID assigned to the product. If they're all 0 then Windows wasn't able to read a valid ID from your phone and it's probably a low level problem. If they look reasonable then it's more likely to point towards a driver issue.
Doc_Brown on 22/2/2011 at 21:21
And if it says "USB\UNKNOWN"?
Al_B on 22/2/2011 at 21:49
I've not seen that myself, I'm afraid, but it may be worth right-clicking on the device in the device manager and selecting "Uninstall". If that doesn't work I'll try an experiment tomorrow on a Vista computer with an invalid USB device and see if I can provoke the same result.
Doc_Brown on 22/2/2011 at 21:53
Much obliged. And no luck with uninstalling, I'm afraid: since the device isn't recognized I'm not given the option to safely remove it, leaving me no choice but to uninstall instead.
Al_B on 22/2/2011 at 22:43
OK. I did mean "uninstall" rather than "safely remove" since that can remove incorrectly loaded device drivers and will prompt you again next time you scan for hardware changes or reboot.
Out of interest - do other mass storage devices (e.g. USB FLASH drives or hard drives) work with your computer? If its a problem with the generic mass storage driver then that might be another clue.
Doc_Brown on 23/2/2011 at 18:01
My USB flash drive still works fine, so the problem's specific to the phone.
Al_B on 23/2/2011 at 18:46
At least that rules out some problems. I've tried a USB device which I forced to misbehave by not responding to Vista's attempts and indeed - it gives "USB\UNKNOWN" for its hardware ID - it must have been a change made between XP and Vista.
There's an (
http://www.halfdone.com/ukd/) Unknown Devices utility that may be able to give you some more information. I've tried it on Windows 7 and it works, so I imagine it shouldn't have a problem with Vista.
