USB Problem "Hardware ID Missing"

Windows 7 Ultimate, Nvidia 730i board, 4 Gigs RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 @ 2.8GHz
Samsung Galaxy Note i717 (Android) cell phone

"Hardware ID missing" appears sporadically on connecting phone via USB cable.

I can connect the phone and get "Hardware ID missing ". I can disconnect and reconnect many times over and still get "Hardware ID missing ". Then I can reconnect and it is recognized just fine with no changes to either the phone or the computer, without even a reboot, all in a span of just a few minutes

To be clear, this seems to be a storage/USB recognition problem ( the phone's internal storage and the add-in SD card ) as MyPhone Explorer interfaces with the phone's applications just fine, "Hardware ID missing" error or not. I have searched the 'net and this appears to be a very common problem with extremely few of them being resolved.

(MyPhone Explorer is a program for managing some of the phone's programs, like Contacts, images, etc.)

The USB cable cannot be the problem because, as stated above, MyPhone Explorer interfaces with the phone's applications just fine, "Hardware ID missing" error or not.

 

Did it ever work correctly consistently? Have you tried a different pair of USB ports?

Have you tried a different computer?

 

Here's the history:

I used this computer with 32-bit Windows 7 for about two years. I use those same ports for frequent connections to scanner, several different USB flash drives and four different external hard disks without ever even one incident.

I've had this phone several weeks. For the first few days, I got "Hardware ID missing" on my main computer. I took it to another computer running Windows 7 loaded from the same DVD and it worked consistently. This told me the problem was in the computer, not the phone. I had four different images of the OS partition dating back as far as one year and four months. I tried all of those images with no change.

I formatted the hard disk and loaded Windows from scratch and it worked consistently for about a week and then the "Hardware ID missing" error started popping up sporadically again. It has reached the point now that it is erroring out more than it is working.

So, having it work consistently for several days after a clean installation of the OS tells me this is a Windows problem. Backdating the computer with OS images made earlier every time this error pops up just isn't practical. I need to uncover what is interfering with the OS recognizing the storage in this phone.

Remember, it is just the phone's storage Windows is not recognizing. The rest of the interfaces to other programs work fine even when the phone's storage produces the "Hardware ID missing" error.

 

No, not conclusively. Did you try another USB pair of ports?

I note with my own phone, I don't get that error, but my phone's storage will not always appear and I have to remember to go into my phone's setup menu and change the "Connect to PC" connection type to "Disk drive ". Then it appears as a removable storage device under Computer and I can add and delete (in my case) my MP3s with no problem.

And I have noticed that my phone does not always keep that setting and some times will change to "Charge only ".

Also, check the USB device Policies property options to ensure it is set to Quick removal so you can safely remove the attached USB device without going through the Safely Remove Hardware notification icon in your system tray.

 

Yes. The ports I normally use for this (again, work fine for everything else) are the two front ports. I tried it on the rear ports and they all worked and I thought I had a work-around for the problem until I got up the next morning to find that none of the rear ports worked either. I turned off the phone, removed its battery for about five minutes, rebooted the phone and computer and no change.

It was some time after that incident that I formatted and reinstalled Windows 7 from scratch and it worked consistently for several days.

I rebooted the phone just now and got "Hardware ID missing" again. It remained unrecognized for several minutes. And then while I was typing this note, the usual Windows dialog popped up asking what I want to do with the newly-connected storage. I looked in Computer and there was my phone showing up as it should as SGH-T879, storage recognized.

I've forgotten how to do that.

I don't recognize any of those settings as anything in my phone.

Yes and yes.

 

Right click on the device in under Computer and select Properties > Hardware, then highlight the device and click Properties, then the Policies tab.

They may be called something else, but it configures the phone when connected via USB.

 

I'll try that if this thing ever gets recognized again. It's being obstinate at the moment.

 

So much for USB actually being "Universal ". Of course, I have always felt something that claims to be a universal fit never fits anything exactly right.

I am sorry I have no more to offer. Intermittent problems are always the most difficult to troubleshoot. Hopefully someone else reading has some advice.

In any case, please keep us posted.

 

There are no such items on the right-click menu. See attachment.

 

Well, I think I see the problem, but I sure don't know the solution. When I connect my phone via USB to my computer, and tell my phone to treat the connection like a hard drive, it appears under Computer as a "Removable Disk" and not a "Portable Media Player ", as yours indicates. And with mine, I have 5 more tabs, in addition to General, as seen below. Note it says under Type, Disk drives.

So that tells me your phone is communicating with Windows but as a media player and not a storage device. And therefore, I think it is phone setting, not a OS setting.

Curious, as a media player, how do you upload photos you take on your phone to your computer?

 

This is a new phone and I haven't even made a call with it yet. I've been so tied down to just getting a call management program that works as well or even partly as well as Call Block does on my Palm Treo 680. It seems this six-year-old Call Block for Palm is still so way out ahead of anything available for Android that there isn't anything available in Android that is a close second -- even after six years.

 

I have over 290 blocked 24/7 numbers and I add a at least couple or three every week. I added two just today. I need a lot more blocking than either T-mobile or the stock Android can handle. The stock Samsung Galaxy Note will handle only 100.

 

Yes, and I renew the registration every year or two. But, there are many exclusions built into that law such as congress exempting themselves from every law they pass. Then it applies to only solicitors who use automated dialers and then only to those who employ three persons or more to man the dialers.

Then you have those American companies who dodge the law by hiring foreigners to run boiler rooms from outside the US.

 

Sounds like it might be easier to attack the problem from a different angle. Instead of potentially attempting to block every phone number on the planet but just a select few, how about some type of parental control program (that you manage) to only allow those select few phone numbers through?

 

I run a business advertised to the general public in a local phone book.

 

And you need to block hundreds of phone numbers?

 

Yes, hundreds.

I add all telemarketers to the ignore list and give each one a name that begins with the letter "Z ", the date it was added to the list and then something about the exact kind of silliness the pitch was. Example: Z20120915 Free Money.

I have a log that I look at and can easily see that some are still calling even after two- and three years. So, once a number is added, it stays in the list forever. Over a period of about 5+ years, it has come to just under 300 numbers in the Ignore list.

There may even be hundreds more than 300 that actually get blocked because the current program I'm using on my Palm Treo 680 allows wild cards. So, I have added anything that begins with an out-of US series of digits, such as +1*. Then there are the telemarketers who have a range of numbers. Example: 12345678* which will block all numbers from 00 to 99 in that series.

Then there are those spoofed numbers that all get blocked, like 1555* and all other non-existent (spoofed) area codes and numbers. Example: any number that has a digit "1" in the first place of a seven-digit dial, such as 12051542447 which prompted me to add a wild-card number to the list, 12051*. Yes, it's against the law to spoof a number in the US; but, some still do it and the equipment with which to do it is cheap and still available on the 'net.