Hardware Wizard, Plug-n-Play, and USB devices (WinXP Pro)

I have a PC here running XP Pro SP3, and everything works fine except for plug-n-play with USB devices (flash drives, mouses, keyboard, etc). We're talking about devices that >used to< plug-n-play without any problems. Now the Hardware Wizard opens and I have to click NextNextNextNext a bunch of times. I never have to actually search for drivers, the drivers are located automatically, but I never had to click Next a bunch of times until about 5 days ago. When you plug a USB mouse in to a WinXP PC, it should pop up a little balloon in the tray by the clock, and give you some notifications, and install it. That's it. I use this PC VERY frequently 6 days a week with flash drives and external USB drives, and having to click Next 7 or 8 times with EVERY device is a major pain-in-the-@$$. Even if I plug in the same flash drive, click Next a bunch of times, use it, then unplug it, the very next time I plug it in (even if it's only 2 min later), I have the Hardware Wizard open again and have to click Next a bunch times again- with the EXACT SAME flash drive!. It's a drag. I checked the UPNP service and the regular PNP service and both are "Automatic" and "Started". So.... why is this happening, and how do I correct it?

THANKS!

 

The only thing I can think of is the motherboard chipset driver or USB driver might need to be updated or reinstalled. Worth a shot, no?

 

I meant to add a screen shot, I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about, but the shot attached below is what pops up everytime I plug in any USB device.... and this never happened until about 5-6 days ago....

:confused

 

Sounds like a corrupted driver to me, have you tried Uninstalling/reinstalling the USB Drivers?

 

Is there some new or updated registry cleaning app that's been run on this PC?

Check this, too:

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out and do a bit Googling....

Yup. The MB has an Nvidia chipset, and I uninstalled/re-installed the chipset software, and I removed everything in the 'USB' section in the device manager and reinstalled these items.... Nothing has worked so far.

Only CCleaner. I'm not sure which version it is, but I'm sure that if it isn't the newest release (3.0), then it's a release or two before that.

Yesterday, the 4gb flash drive that I use about 10 times a day on this PC plugged-n-played perfectly, TWICE, without being forced in to the hardware wizard. However, considering that I used it at least 7 or 8 other times and was forced in to the hardware wizard those times is a bit strange. I also connected two different external hard drives (at separate times) and each of them had to go thru the hardware wizard also. For some reason, I just now thought of using System Restore to roll back 2-3 weeks. Hopefully that will help. I could always perform a repair install too, but I like the challenge of trying to figure out problems like this (yeah, I'm sick and twisted that way LOL roflmao).

 

In the "Mounted Devices" section of the registry, I have about 70 or 80 items listed, and some of those are "\DosDevices\A:" with drive letters up to "L:". So, should I remove the entries that aren't assigned a drive letter? The entries w/o drive letters look like this: \??\Volume{e5ca1e32-db90-11df-9a86-806d6172696f} for example, and there's probably up to 65 entries similar to this....

Been too busy lately to try the System Restore, maybe I'll try it today....

 

I have this in my utility folder ...but I've never used it,its a cleaner for accumulated usb reg entries,like i said,i don't know if it'll help,but you can get the info and download from here http://www.everythingusb.com/nexcopy-usb-scrub-18004.html

 

roflmao I know what you mean!!! While I could export the reg key and save it just in case, I really don't like deleting stuff from the reg "just to see if it fixes the problem". If I know what I'm deleting, then I'm OK with it, but for experimentation, it can be scary.

However, this is no longer an issue 'cuz the hard drive has failed. :cry The PC in question is a 'shop PC' that I use for all sorts of tasks like data recovery from external/secondary drives (meaning: data recovery from client's or customer's hard drives), remote scanning of infected drives (from customers/clients), and similar tasks. It had a 40gb SATA as drive C: for the OS (WinXP) and apps, a 500gb SATA as drive D: for data storage, and of course a DVDRW, media reader, and even a floppy. Around noon on Sat Dec 4, I was in the middle of trying to access data on a client's drive with a corrupt non-booting Vista on it, when I started hearing the dreaded klaklak - CLICHUNK - klaklak - CLICHUNK of a dying hard drive, and the PC locked up. I initially assumed it was the clients drive. So I powered down, unplugged the power cord from the tower, disconnected the client's drive, and powered back up. Just before the XP desktop appeared, again I heard the klaklak - CLICHUNK - klaklak - CLICHUNK, and since I had also disconnected drive D: earlier (for a completely different reason that has no bearing on this extremely boring and now much-too-long story), I knew it was my drive C:. SOOO - to get to the point - the OS that was acting weird with USB devices is gone. The drive has failed and has been replaced with a new 250gb SATA. It's up and running just fine, and, yes, USB devices are running normally as they should. Thanks for all the help, interest, and input everyone! It truly is appreciated.

@ pistol: thanks for the link! Looks like a pretty cool little app and it may very well have fixed the initial problem I was having. I downloaded the app to my flash drive for future use.

(BTW - I did recover the client's data, and they're happy.... I know you were all wondering, so I thought I'd mention it. LOL )