USB Device (flash drive) Not Recognized

I have an odd situation with my collection of USB Flash Drives. (All supplied by Crucial.)

At the present time some of them work via an extension cable to one of my USB ports OK but the others fail to be recognized. If I plug the 'unrecognized' drives directly into another USB socket they are recognized and I can access the data. If I plug them directly into another computer they are recognized OK.

In the past all drives had functioned via an extension cable, which I have recently replaced with a (supposedly) better quality cable. (Belkin - which suggests that it may in fact be of good quality.)

Is the problem basically that the drives are not recognized because of the extension cable, or is it that there is some other inherent problem?


TIA

 

Make the filter change:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;925196
&sd=rss&spid=3223

Then see what is known as identified USB devices on each USB port. You might prune the list. Every time you plug the USB device into a different USB port it is treated by XP as a new device. It is a good idea to keep the number of devices down by pruning the lists: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

 

Thanks for the info, and thanks for the reference to that little utility. I found things in there that I had long forgotten and long since discarded.


As to the original problem I did some more checks and it appears now that the (new) cable does for some reason prevent the computer from recognizing some USB sticks.

Doesn't seem logical to me unless it is a matter of some unexpected impedance, high resistance or some-such on the line. Certainly some sort of 'message' must get through for Windows to reject the thing. Plugging direct into the relevant USB socket allows immediate access, proving, it would seem, that the cable is, in some way, below spec.