Toshiba Satellite A200 USB Issue

Hi,

I've been working on a friends A200-AHC308. It had a few viruses and was currently running XP, so I decided to reformat to XP-SP3. Prior to the reformat I attempted to back up all of his files to a USB flash drive, although the computer had problems recognizing the USB. I figured that the problem may have had something to do with a faulty driver installation so ignored it and continued with the format, having backed up his files on a DVD. After the reformat I am still having the same issue. All drivers are installed properly and nothing in Device Manager is popping up with a question mark. What happens is this: I plug the media in (whether it be an external HDD or a flashdrive) and the computer goes through its device wizard. It does one of two things:
Says the device was installed successfully although when attempting to access it through My Computer the drive does not load (it is present, although when attempting to open it I have no luck).
Says the device is not compatible.

Anyone?

 

If you have a second USB flash drive available, plug it into the Toshiba and see if you can read from/write to it.

If you can, it's likely the drive you backed the data up on is either going bad or was corrupted by the virus(es). If this is the case, any attempt at recovering the data should be done with extreme caution. If inserted into and accessed from another PC there is a good chance it will infect it. Go to the virus and malware section of the board for specific scanning and cleaning tips for the drive before you attempt to open or transfer any data from it.

If the second (clean) USB drive doesn't work, reboot the PC with the USB drive removed and try again. If it still fails, go to http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com/Portal and download the Beta version of Microsoft's Fix-It Tool. XP SP3 had a few bugs; this tool fixes many of them.

Hope this helps.

 

Hey gman863,

Thanks for the reply. I've tried multiple flash drives and I've also tested the usb storage devices on my desktop to make sure they're functioning properly. Everything works perfectly, except when I attempt to use them on the A200. If I leave any USB device plugged in long enough it eventually "installs", although when I open the (F Removable Drive there is nothing inside. I know that the device isn't functioning properly because the light on the USB device is not on... weird

 

Although rare, I have heard of cases where certain viruses corrupt a system's BIOS. Although I've done BIOS upgrades on uninfected PCs, I don't know how safe a BIOS flash or upgrade is on an infected one.

If you know the name(s) of the virus(es) from a scan report, you might want to search MajorGeeks' forum (especially the viruses and malware section) for specific information about them - are they able to screw the BIOS up and, if so, what can be done to fix the BIOS if needed.

 

Try updating the chipset driver.

http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com

 

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, although the computer HAS been reformatted. No more viruses, it's clean and has all it's necessary drivers installed. All of the Universal Serial Bus' are accounted for in my Device Manager, although the problem still persists. Also, the chipset driver is the latest from toshiba's website. I will try the BIOS update when I get a chance.

I've also tried using FAT, FAT32, and NTFS formatted removables, although still no luck.

 

I've now successfully updated the bios, which seemed to have a temporary affect but it has now gone away. After updating, the computer restarted and I plugged in a USB drive. The drive was recognized and there was power to the drive, although I was unable to access it. When trying to open the drive, there would be no files inside, although the drive is populated as tested on another computer.

 

One more idea...

There is a possibility the hard drive in the Toshiba has issues. "S.M.A.R.T." or Microsoft's diskcheck utility won't always catch them. Find a good freeware program in the downloads section and test the crap out of it. I've had two cases in the past year where doing this exposed HDD issues that were causing a PC to hang up or run slow.

Don't attempt to clone a suspect drive; the corrupted data will clone as corrupted on the new drive.

Alternately, if you have an extra notebook HDD pop it in the Toshiba, load Windows on it and see if it solves the issue. I'm replacing a notebook drive for a client tonight that (after cleaning viruses off) is having similar issues.

 

Good Content in all post.Its very useful for all o software engineers.