jlr1260

I think it's pretty amazing that this thread has stayed alive for years. I was hit with the "USB Drive Not Recognized" issue on my desktop today when I turned on my printer. My first thought was to reinstall the printer software and update the driver. Sounds pretty straight forward but it didn't work. I'm not computer illiterate but I'm not a techie either and I despise fixing computer issues. I googled the problem and was brought to this thread. It took me about two hours to read the whole thing! Several of the suggestions intimidated me (editing the registry, etc.) so I decided to try something less invasive, so to speak. First I disconnected the printer, shut down the computer and unplugged it from the wall. I let it sit for about an hour and turned it back on, reconnected the printer, turned it on and the message came up again. Arrgh. I took a break for a couple hours, then decided to tackle it again. I need to mention that the only thing the computer wouldn't recognize was my printer. On the second attempt to fix the issue I deleted the "unknown device" from the device manager. I disconnected the printer from the computer and unplugged it from the wall. I disconnected the mouse and keyboard, shut down the computer, unplugged it from the wall and pressed the power button for 10 seconds as was suggested by a few people. I let it sit unplugged for about an hour. I reconnected the mouse & keyboard, plugged the computer in and turned it back on. I uninstalled the printer software, then reinstalled it. At the end of the installation it told me to connect the printer to the computer and turn it on. I held my breath and crossed my fingers while it finished installing the drivers. Voila! It recognized my printer again! Thank you to everyone who's posted what worked for them. I personally think my issue came about from leaving the computer running for over two days. My daughter plugs her iPod in to charge before she goes to bed. I left the computer on two nights in a row so the iPod would fully charge. Normally it gets shut down every night. I'm guessing that the computer might have overheated or the iPod messed things up, even though she's had it since Christmas and we've never had a problem before. Regardless, I'm happy that I didn't have to spend days or months trying to figure out the problem. My untechnical specs: eMachines desktop system (purchased 2007, hard drive replaced 2009); Windows Vista Home Premium; Canon MP160 printer