Microsoft Windows VISTA versus your USB peripheral devices
Good News: Vista can find my USB drive again
Bad News: It took me three hours to find that out.
My kid got a fancy new phone/MP3 player and needed to ‘borrow’ my Readyboost USB drive—like, right now. I got a new thumb drive and—Zow! Vista couldn’t find any USB drivers. It didn’t even know what the heck a USB drive WAS. Didn’t care, either.
Google is my friend, so I Googled “VISTA USB NOT RECOGNIZED”. I found many, many sad and piteous cries for help similar to my own.
Why was this so hard? It used to work. And the suggestions from people in the online discussion forums were CRAZY!
“Unplug all USB devices. Uninstall EVERYTHING to do with USB in Device Manager, and restart.Then, plug in the most reliable USB device you have, and report results here.”
“U shuold b using Linux asswipe”
and “Email me when you get an answer because I don’t check this forum too often.”
The solution came from Microsoft.com, as a bug fix included in Vista Service Pack 1 version 1 Update Rollup (May 5, 2008). I didn’t read all the way to the bottom of the solution page, before downloading all 434 mb of Service Pack 1 version 1 Update Rollup:
Important The update that is described in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article has been replaced by the update that is described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 941600. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
KB941600 Cumulative update rollup for USB core components in Windows Vista”)
What I really needed was Vista Service Pack 1 version 2 (May 18, 2008). (“This update resolves some reliability issues in the USB core components on the Windows Vista operating system”)
I also didn’t read this part before installing Service Pack 1, Version 2: “The installation might take an hour or more to install. Your computer will restart several times before completion.”
Yes. It really did take an hour, and rebooted only once–and my USB drive is now recognized, ReadyBoost is happy again.
Oh, and Microsoft did check to make sure I had Genuine Microsoft Software.
