laptop not recognizing USB drives

I hope I'm posting this in the right place.
When I connect a device into any of the USB ports this laptop doesn't recognize it. In addition to 'C' drive, this laptop recognizes 'D' DVD RW drive and 'E' CD drive. This is a Toshiba laptop, Satellite A205, Windows Vista Home Premium, 32 bit.

Thanks.

 

Is this behavior with just one of the USB devices or are all USB devices unrecognized?
If just one, try the device in another computer (if you don't have a 2nd computer, ask a friend if you can test a piece of hardware). THat will narrow it down as to the USB device or the Toshiba computer.

 

The laptop has 4 USB ports and none are recognized. I did connect the device to my PC and it charged up but I won't always have access to the PC so I would like to be able to use the laptop's USB ports. Any suggestions?
Thanks.

 

What type of device are you connecting? It's possible it won't be recognized if it isn't some sort of drive (HDD, Flash, CD/DVD). If you're connecting a Cell Phone, the USB driver for that make of Cell Phone needs to be installed.

 

The device I'm currently trying to connect is an Eclipse 180rd 4gb Portable Media Player with 1.8" Display.
~ thanks ~

 

hi,

When you say none of your usb ports are recognised, is this only for the device your are talking about? or all usb devices you try on the laptop?

Vista was known for driver issues, is why i'm asking. If no usb devices work please check out the usb functionality in "device manager". You can also update driver from this area on the devices tab / info when you select it.

gl

 

I connected a jump drive and it opened on the laptop. I tried it in all USB ports. . .ditto. So I connected the Eclipse device (mp3 player and more) and it worked okay, too, except it isn't charging the device but it recognized it and I saw my music files when I opened the files on the laptop.

When I have it connected to the PC there is an indication it is charging and when the battery is "full". I don't see any such indication while it is connected to the laptop but it isn't a problem worthy of any more of your time. My concern was with the laptop's USB ports not working but evidently they are. Thank you all for your efforts to help me resolve this issue.

 

Your mp3 player requires Windows Media Player 10 or later set up.
I have two SanDisk Clip+ mp3 players. They are not recognized on the computers where I never set up WMP. Since I could only charge them on certain computers, I bought an external charger like this
Now I don't have to bother about turning a computer on to charge my players.

 

Great suggestion! Thanks for the tip.