Problem: USB port not working???

[Gav]

Recently, the only usb port on my Gateway laptop stopped working.  My laptop is running on Windows ME.

According to the device manager, it says that the usb port is installed and working properly, but it appears unresponsive when I plug any usb into it and there's no error message that shows up on the screen.

I had tried restoring my whole computer several times.  The first time I restored the system, the usb and modem were not installed properly and I had to do the restoration again.  This time around the PCI audio wouldn't install, due to some Windows conflict, and the usb was then properly installed and worked just fine.  Then my web cam started to not work properly and I thought it was because it was running out of batteries, but it still would not work with the brand new batteries.  I tried the web cam on another computer and it did not work on that either.  Thinking that it was just the web cam, I got a new one, but the usb port was acting dead towards anything plugged in, as I also tried my external harddrive and it worked just fine on another computer.  I'm also thinking that my computer screwed up my old web cam!
I restored windows once again, this time the audio worked, and the device manager still says that the usb port is installed and working properly.  I still am not able to install my modem, but I don't use it so I'm not worried about it.

Could it be my operating system?  Or do I need to replace my usb port?   If anyone could help me, I'd really appreciate it!  Thanks =)...

[odin]

One word:
WinME.

Nuff said. Get Win2k on that thing, fast!

[Doobrey]

odin wrote:
Get Win2k on that thing, fast!

Or even go back to Win98.. :-o
WinME has gotta be the worst OS Microsoft ever released.

[Gav]

I was told not to get Windows ME..but I had no choice as it came with my laptop.  It was doing okay for a while until I decided to restore the whole system!

Well..I'll be getting a copy of Windows 2000 soon and I hope it solves the problem!

Thanks for the replies!

[Floid]

Replacing your USB port is nontrivial (effectively: get a new laptop), but if you hotplug in and out of it often, this (being screwed) is a real possibility.

Not every design has always properly buffered the port against ESD/etc.  ABit in particular were peoned by this a few years back... it's *supposed* to be a hotpluggable interface, but Your Manufacturer May Vary.

As a quick test to see if ME is your trouble, you can burn a copy of Knoppix and see if a standard USB mouse works.  (The existence of the laptop's own pointing device may make this less-deterministic, of course.)