usb tries to format everything..

whenever i try to plug in any usb port, windows tells me to format it, if i click ok it says format cannot be completed but deletes everything anyway..
its done it to my ipod, camera, memory stick and phone

anyone know whats wrong?
thanks

 

Hi there, I'm sorry I can't help but I think I have the same problem as you and rather than starting a new thread, I think I can expand on your post and hopefully, assuming the problems are the same, someone will be able to help.

I recently had this problem on my desktop PC. I have a USB memory stick which works fine in my PS3 and my macbook. I plug it into my Windows XP machine and it says the memory stick is not formatted. I tried formatting and it claims the format failed. However, the format didn't fail as the memory stick still works in my mac and my PS3. I tried to sync my iPod and iTunes claimed the iPod was damaged and requested that I repair the firmware installation. It goes through the motions, wipes all my music and appears to complete the repair. However iTunes still says it's damaged. I have not tried any other memory based devices but my USB keyboard and my USB web cam still works fine.

So the problem only affects devices with accessible memory. To eliminate a hardware issue, I ran a live Linux distribution and my memory stick worked perfectly. So I must conclude that it's a windows issue.

Any ideas anyone?