Summary
I had difficulties in installing USB flash card readers with Vista.
I had tried products by both Kingston and Belkin :
- Belkin F5U271
- Kingston FCR-HS215/1
Each time Windows tried to get a driver online and asked for a CD with a driver. But there was no success.
Eventually I found a solution. To skip to the solution see “Detailed Solution Steps” below.
Problem Research
I sent an email to Kingston and telephoned them in the UK. Amazingly there was prompt help via both routes. However they gave slightly different solutions.
Their most detailed response was…
Thank you for contacting Kingston Technical Support.
Note that Windows Vista does not require any drivers for the DataTraveler.
1. Insert drive and wait for about 20 seconds to see if the driver installation is slow.
2. During device driver search, point to a location Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and enable “Include subfolders” in the Browse window.
If this fails, point to one of the subfolders within FileRepository:
FileRepository\usbstor.inf_…
FileRepository\disk.inf_…
FileRepository\volume.inf_…
FileRepository\wpdfs.inf_…
3. If FileRepository location(s) doesn’t work, point to location Windows\System32\Spool\Drivers and enable “Include subfolders” in the Browse window.
4. Check Device Manager for incorrectly installed drivers for the DataTraveler; uninstall them and reinsert the drive.
I tried all this and still no success. Each time Vista reported “The system cannot find the file specified”.
After searching the web for a couple of frustrating hours I cam across this entry by WickedMX…
I’ve been experiencing the same problem with usb storage devices for the last few weeks and have visited numerous forums discussing it. After having no joy I decided to take a look around my system folders and have now got these devices working again. While looking around I discovered 2 points of interest:
- In C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository I had two folders named “usbstor.inf” but each one had a different set of numbers attached to the end of the folder name. - could this be where part of the problem lies?
- When I looked in my C:\Windows\inf folder I discovered the usbstor.inf and usb stor.pnf files were missing - this definitely had to be an issue.
Once I discovered these anomalies, I proceeded to copy the pnf and inf files from the most recently updated usbstor.inf folder to C:\Windows\inf. I then went back to the update driver wizard, pointed to the inf folder and what do you know but they all started working again.
So with some scepticism I tried this approach and it worked.
Detailed Solution Steps
1. Go to C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository
Find files named usbstore…
2. Choose the most recent usbstor folder
Open the folder
You’ll see a number of files…
3. Select and copy usbstor.inf
4. Now go to C:\Windows\Inf
Paste the usbstor.inf file into this folder (On my system there was no usbstor.inf file already in this folder).
5. Now try again to install the reader
When Vista reports it cannot find a driver direct it to C:\Windows\Inf
If all goes well you will see the following information from Vista
Footnote
I don’t know whether this approach works with other types of USB device on Vista or other card readers but it certainly worked for me.
Thanks so much. I used this to cure my woes with a USB mouse. I had been to many different websites. I have no idea why this solution would work for a mouse, but it did. Thanks again!!
Хм… Какой кошмар!
I tried all of the above but nothing worked for me. The mp3 player just wouldn’t show up in My Computer, even though it was listed as an “unknown device”.
I have a JNC mp3 player which I used to just plug in to my old laptop and it used to work fine! I used the device for extra storage too.
I had this really weird brainwave while I was sitting here for hours searching for answers to why the device was showing up as “unknown device” in Device Manager under Universal Serial Bus Controller.
The computer advised me that all software had been installed correctly.
When I tried to direct it to find a new driver in C:/Windows etc etc it said that there were no new drivers to install, and windows determines that I already had the lastest driver for my device. Weird. So why wasn’t it working then?
So I just tried the device on the 4 seperate USB ports I have on my new laptop. And guess what! One of them actually works, and I now have access to all the files saved.
It worked for me, because I don’t have anything mapped to the E:
My little flash drive likes to be plugged into a different usb port and is called the G:.
Like I said, weird. But it works now!
В очередной раз благодарю, хорошие что есть такие люди как вы, которые дают на самом деле полезные советы:)
Your a damn legend my man!
Thank you a LOT!!!! Your advice has worked greatfully!!!
Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Thanks
Thanks man, but thats easy if you are the techy type, I used driver detective to fix the problem, see,
http://www.fixyourdrivers.com/
great contibution, thanks
[...] The earlier post that refers to a way of getting Vista to recognise USB drivers has moved to : Technobabble Blog Archive Vista Driver Problems installing a USB Media Reader – A solution! It should help with any instances where Vista cannot find a USB driver – particularly for media [...]
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thanks, after many hours of searching on the web I found this solution and apply to Windows 7 to solve the same problem with DataTraveler 102.
thanks again
Thanks a lot….this fixed my blackberry device as windows 7 was not recognize the mass storage mode….