Toshiba Satellite 1800 (PS181C-00CET) Windows ME USB Problem

[FONT= "Tahoma"]My friend is having a problem with her Verbatim USB Store n' Go Drive. She has a Toshiba Satellite 1800 (PS181C-00CET) running Windows ME. When she disconnects the key it doesn't unload the USB Mass Storage driver when it reconnects it loads a second USB Mass Storage driver. It is in this condition that she is unable to save anything to the key, otherwise Windows ME goes into a tailspin blue screening with the message "Unable to write to Drive E" with the only escape route being "Ctrl-Alt-Del ". To properly disconnect the key I have to remove the USB Mass Storage in the Device Manager.

In the Device Manager tab the ALi USB Host controller is marked with a question mark on a green bullet. I tried looking for a update USB driver on Toshiba's site, but I found nothing. I was thinking of installing an updated ALi USB driver, but I'm not sure it's the right one for this laptop and the USB printer and mouse work fine. [/FONT]

 

Maybe the first thing to do is to see if your friend has the original drivers CD that came with the laptop. If not, look on the ALI website, but the drivers might be archived (it seems to have been built in 2001 and, of course, the model of the chipset is not listed at Toshiba).

Highlight and uninstall/remove the problem driver in Device Manager. When you reboot, see if the Window's New Hardware wizard can install the drivers (if it cannot find the correct drivers, uncheck all the locations for it to look eg, A:, optical drives, etc., that makes it search in it's own system files). No luck at this point, if you have the drivers installation CD or download, click Cancel and run that program.

If it still cannot find the correct drivers, in the Add Hardware wizard, use the radio button "I will select the drivers from a list ", it may list several compatible drivers which you could try, otherwise highlight the closest match and use the "Have disk..." button to direct it to the .inf file (on the CD or in the uncompressed download, probably in a Drivers\Win ME folder).

Being basic drivers for the system, hopefully you won't need to try all those steps.

Matt

 

Holy poop! I'm on the floor twitching with flash backs!

 

My friend has the Toshiba Product Recovery CD. Why couldn't they have made it a generic OEM Windows ME installation CD? Anyhow this point might be moot since I think I can manually install the ALi OHCI USB Driver (Windows ME includes it). Apparently the same thing occurred on a Lucent USB Device (the green bulleted question marks), but manually installing the same driver made the green question marks go away. I don't know if this will fix the problem I'm having with the Verbatim USB Flash Drive.

I tried removing the driver, but the New Hardware Wizard reinstalled the driver with the question marks. I will have to look at Toshiba's recovery CD more carefully.

Yes, I hope so. My friend has also told that there have been problems with the OrangeCombo card I gave her way back. And wouldn't you know it Orange Micro has gone bankrupt, .

 

It seems to be using the wrong .inf file. If you find a set of drivers that you are quite certain are the correct ones, find the .inf file, right-click on it and select install. You won't notice anything happen, but if you go to the radio button "I will select the drive from a list..." in the hardware wizard, it should be listed there.

For the Orange Micro drivers (and maybe help with the USB problem), register at www.driverguide.com (free). There are many drivers and a forum.

dadsgravy, welcome to the BBS. Don't expect anything new with Vista

Matt