Windows 7-x64 USB problems

[userxp]

Original post:

Spoiler:

I recently got a Kindle 4 as a christmas present (the cheap, non-touch version). Everything seemed to work fine at first (even the Wi-Fi), until I tried to connect it to my laptop, an Asus A53SJ with Windows 7 home premium 64 bits.

• Instead of being recognized as a standard mass storage device, the message "Windows is installing device drivers" popped out, followed shortly by "Windows couldn't find any drivers for Amazon Kindle". When I open "Devices and printers" it appears under the category "unspecified" with a generic "unknown device" icon with the little orange triangle. The same thing happens on the "device manager". Also windows keeps playing an ugly "device connection error" every minute or so.
  
• The Kindle doesn't show any connection. The LED lights indicating that it's charging, and the on-screen battery indicator changes to "charging" for just a few seconds (which is odd). I have managed to crash it once tough.
  
• Googleing the problem shows that apparently, I'm not the first person to have USB connection problems with a Kindle. I have tried everything in every possible combination: restarting the Kindle, the computer, disabling the WiFi, different USB ports (I only have 3 though), a different cable (a very short Nokia one), changing the "power plan" on the computer, updating every driver and even manually installing the "Mass storage" driver for it, but still nothing.
  
• The Kindle can connect to other computers, to the same computer running an Ubuntu Live CD, and even to a Windows XP running inside VMWare running inside the problematic Windows 7. This would seem to indicate that it's not a hardware fault.
  
• I found an old 512MB Kingston DataTraveler2.0 that has exactly the same problem (see picture). I don't know what to think of that.

Anyway, I don't know if it's Windows' fault, Kindle's or Asus'. Probably all of them, plus the USB Implementer's forum for not caring enough about standard conformance. Anyway, I'd be extremely happy if anyone had any suggestions on how to deal with this, because if I call Amazon's customer service they're probably just gonna send me a new one which is not gonna work anyway.

Basically: My Asus A53SJ with Windows 7 home premium 64 bits suddenly has decided to not recognize any new USB mass-storage devices. The old ones (all the ones that have worked in the past) still work.

[phlip]

With the Kindle working on other machines, and other USB storage devices not working on your computer, it definitely sounds like it's not a problem with the Kindle, but with your computer. And with it working in Linux and in a VM, it definitely sounds like it's not a problem with your hardware, but with Windows.

Do any USB storage devices work? Or do they all fail in the same way?

As a workaround, until if/when you manage to fix it, you could always just boot the VM whenever you need to connect to the Kindle... I do the same thing to manage my iPhone from my Linux computer...

[userxp]

After a few more tests, it's clear that only the devices that I had plugged in the past work; new ones are not recognized. Weird, and a bit creepy (though it's not really a surprise that windows keeps a track of every device it has connected to). I've been also having problems with the SD card reader drivers (why does it even need drivers for that?), and I suspect it's very related to the USB problems. I'll keep investigating and see if I can get it fixed, and in the last resort do a full reinstall (and if that don't work... use Ubuntu).


In a completely unrelated issue, I think I just accidentally broke the DVD reader . Goodbye warranty?

UPDATE: the DVD drive is fixed, and now I found a two USB sticks that do work?!