Fix Windows Problems: USB Device not recognized

When trying to access data on an external USB hard drive, you may suddenly receive the following error message: “USB Device not recognized: One of the devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it.”

Thus, you may fail to read the desired data that stored within the external USB hard drive correctly. Why does this error occur and how can you fix this Windows error easily?

Most of the time, the “USB Device not recognized” error message might appear when the currently loaded USB driver has become unstable or corrupt. If this is the case, uninstall and then reconnect to the external hard drive again to see whether it solves the problem:

*Click Start, type Device Manager in the Search box.
*Within the appearing list, click Device Manager.
*Then click Disk Drives.
*Right-click the problematic USB external hard drive, and click Uninstall.
*Unplug the USB cable when the uninstall finishes.
*Wait for several minutes and reconnect the USB cable. Typically, the driver should automatically load.
*Then, connect your USB external hard drive again to see whether you are able to read the desired data or not.

If after the above solutions you still get the “USB Device not recognized” error message, you can try reinstalling the USB controllers to solve the issue:

* Click Start, then type device manager in the Search box, then click Device Manager.
* Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. Right click the devices one by one and click Uninstall.
* Once complete, restart your computer and the USB controllers will automatically install.

Thirdly, to deal with the “USB Device not recognized” error message, do remember to check and install all available updates. It is common that a fix within the Windows update service packs will contain a fix to deal with this Windows error.

* Click the Start button, Search box and type Windows Update, then click Windows Update in the results pane.
* Click Check for Updates.
* When the scan completes, click Review optional updates.
* Click the check box next to the updates, and then click Install updates.
* If prompted, review the license agreement, and then click I Accept.
* Follow the onscreen instructions to download and install the updates.

If none of the above solutions works, maybe the problem might be caused due to a problem on the computer itself. And the first thing you should do is to check and remove all viruses from the computer. It is quite easy for the computer to get infected as you visit a page, download a file, or chat online with others via email, chatrooms… Once get onto the computer, they may stop you from accessing some files correctly by displaying a “USB Device not recognized” error message. It is highly advised that you can completely scan the whole PC with a trusted antivirus antispyware program and remove all detected viruses immediately.

Then, check and repair Windows registry errors. First of all, you should know that all information about your operating system as well as all the applications on the PC are all stored within the registry database. That is, no matter whenever you send out a request, the system will first read through this database for the required entries. And every PC task has to rely on the registry so as to accomplish completely. But when something goes wrong, the PC will generate kinds of errors messages like “USB Device not recognized” or some other similar errors. So, the final thing you should do right now is to completely scan and repair all errors inside the Windows registry. Only with a clean and compact registry database, will the computer run properly all the time.

Having difficulty in accessing your data due to a “USB Device not recognized” error message? Want to run the computer properly all the time? Start optimizing it from now on with these steps, and you can easily enjoy a pleasant PC life all the time!