[Fey]

Okay, this has been an on-again, off-again, problem for about a year now. And, yes, the first answer I'll probably get is 'just do a reformat', well, I would really rather find alternate solutions FIRST since the problem makes doing that a bit dicey.

Okay, about a year ago I did those lovely 'you're computer has updates' bit that most computers get. I updated, rebooted, and life went on. Well, not entirely. Because now my computer didn't know it had USB ports. At all. I have seven of them, so I found it odd that NONE of them worked. I poked around the 'net looking for answers. I tried their solutions, save the reformat, and nothing worked.

So, I just lived with the fact that they didn't work. It's hard to reformat when you can't do major backups via USB to external devices. A couple more updates and LO they're back! For a while. Then, I notice that my media ports(think camera memory stick drives) are gone. Same thing as what had happened to my USB ports.

Now, every few weeks one or the other MIGHT be back, but only for a short amount of time. Right now my media ports work, my USB are gone. I'm now terrified to do any computer updates as i reeeeeeeeally need at least one thing to work for when I get back from vacation.

Does anyone know what I can do to fix this, sans reformatting? I can spend the next month burning stuff to CDs and DVDs if that's my only option, but I'd really rather not.

[Batty]

I would suggest looking into Driver Genius. If anything, maybe you can just re-install the drivers for it? It sounds like thats what it is. The drivers are just either going corrupt, or going missing. And Driver Genius should be able to fix that right up. :3

[But don't take my word for it... we have techies here that are much more knowledgeable than I. <3]

[Serra Britt]

Maybe you could PM Coda? He should know his way around or at least be able to talk you through getting them working again. It's a very strange error I'm sure, it sounds more like your drivers aren't working right, rather than the windows updates changing things :/

[Batty]

Bahaha, so I'm not the only one who thinks so? Thank goodness!

Driver genius should definitely be able to help, then.
But if you aren't sure, there is a way to find out if the drivers are working properly. May I ask, what are you running? XP?

[Echo-chan713]

How you tried contacting Geek Squad yet?