Phantom USB drive - port not working

kkelly77

I used a 4Gb drive to transfer some files over onto a Win 7 Ultimate laptop. Drive was picked up as E: and transfer was successful. Removed the drive in the usual Windows procedure of selecting the drive and removing when the Safe To Remove message appeared on the screen.

However, now the drive is still listed in Disk Management as Removable Media and in Device Manager as a Portable Device. This has left the USB port in question unusable. None of the USB storage I've tried work but all the other USB ports work OK.

Tried disabling in Device Manager and reinstalling driver but no luck. Gone so far as to reinstall Windows yet the phantom drive and problem still exist.

Google didn't produce any fixes other than how to hide the drive in Disk Management making changes to Regedit. I'm not to bothered about the drive being visable, I just want the USB port to work. Any help please??

Traitor

Boot into safe mode and delete the USB drive and offending port(s) from the device manager then reboot and re-enumerate.

kkelly77

Traitor wrote: »

Boot into safe mode and delete the USB drive and offending port(s) from the device manager then reboot and re-enumerate.

No luck. just reinstalled automatically when I booted back into Windows.

Noticed that in Device Manager, under Disks, there is a Genric USB Card Reader listed. I removed this and it did delete the phantom drive in Disk Management. However, it was automatically reinstalled after reboot.

So now I know what the laptop thinks is there but how do I get rid of it?

Traitor

could be a faulty port on your computer or one of your hubs... try tracking stuff down with USBview.

kkelly77

Traitor wrote: »

could be a faulty port on your computer or one of your hubs... try tracking stuff down with USBview.

Looks like an issue with Host Controller 293C



I'll try to remove in Safe Mode but not expecting a good result.

kkelly77

No luck. Automatically reinstalled. Same issue. :mad:

Traitor

Is it a Realtek compact flash USB card reader with a 4gb flash card in it?

kkelly77

Traitor wrote: »

Is it a Realtek compact flash USB card reader with a 4gb flash card in it?

No. I plugged a generic 4Gb memory stick into the port. Transferred files OK and removed OK. But the laptop thinks there is a drive still plugged in. There are no USB devices attached to the laptop at all.

Traitor

What kind of computer is it? I'd like to look up the specs if possible.

kkelly77

Traitor wrote: »

What kind of computer is it? I'd like to look up the specs if possible.

Acer Aspire 5735z

Had a look at the 3 USB ports. The one that is not working looks physically different to the other two. The MB was replaced with a "tested" replacement from an eBay store, due to an intial no power issue.

I wonder if the port has been replaced before and if so, would replacing the port itself make any difference?

_Kaiser_

Sounds like it's an eSATA/USB combo port if it's physically different, but you won't be able to replace just that - it'd be a whole new motherboard.

But before getting that drastic, try a system restore to roll back a few days (if listed) and that should undo the changes made by the drivers.

kkelly77

Photo on the way....

kkelly77

Original faulty MB



Replacement MB. Centre USB port is the one that is faulty (and looks a little different)



Tried a full Windows re-install as there wasn't a restore point available to roll back to.

Traitor

Ok, so you're probably going to hate this after struggling so long to get the device to go away...

The screen shot you posted has the vendor and device id of a USB device which when looked up is a Realtek card reader ( http://driverscollection.com/Search/USB%5CVID_0BDA%26PID_0158 ).

If this is the device that "shouldn't be there"... it actually should. The Acer Aspire 5735z comes with a built in 5-in-1 card reader which does run on the USB Buss, which is used for SD, MicroSD, etc cards.

The driver for this device is available on ACER's site, but you probably don't need it unless the device isn't running properly.

I don't see any pins/contacts in that port. Could you get a pic at a different angle and make sure the pins aren't smashed up inside the port?

Can you post a screen shot of the "USB Composite Device" listed there too?

kkelly77

Thanks for looking into that for me.

Pins on faulty port look OK. I've attached a couple more photos.

Traitor

What is the USB Composite Device listed 2 lines above the realtek in USBView?

kkelly77

Traitor wrote: »

What is the USB Composite Device listed 2 lines above the realtek in USBView?

No idea. There is nothing connected to the laptop. Webcam is built in to the screen bezel.



UPDATE: Actually it looks like the idVendor 0x064E refers to the webcam - http://www.pcidatabase.com/search.php?device_search_str=w

Traitor

Yep. Your webcam.

kkelly77

So am I just looking at a faulty USB port then?

Traitor

kkelly77 wrote: »

So am I just looking at a faulty USB port then?

Does nothing work it in? USB mouse/keyboard/anything?

kkelly77

Traitor wrote: »

Does nothing work it in? USB mouse/keyboard/anything?

Nothing at all

Traitor

kkelly77 wrote: »

Nothing at all

If not, I'd say the port isn't working. And since the actual port was replaced at some point, I'd say the manufacturer repaired it and sent it out as refurbished because it was failing before. If it was working and stopped, I'd check the solder points on their repair job, or contact whoever you got it from.

Capt'n Midnight

you can clean out remembered stuff in device manager by using this on a command line

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc

Alun

You can also use Ghostbuster ...

http://ghostbuster.codeplex.com/

Handier if you want to remove a whole bunch of similar phantom devices in one go, such as all the "Generic Volume" ones you get if you plug in and out a lot of different USB Mass Storage devices.