A friend has a new Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop, Windows XP, and originally asked for my assistance as he could not install his new Epson printer. When the printer cable is plugged in to the USB socket the laptop does not identify it at all - it certainly IDs something has been attached but in a generic manner "USB Composite" ie not the name of the printer. Power is coming through but I have tried attaching other pieces of kit such as a flash memory stick, webcam, graphics tablet and others. Each time the attached is not recognised and the New Hardware wizard starts - prompting either the CD or other source for the drivers. It then does not find these drivers (presumably because it doesn't know what hardware item it is looking for). The Device manager confirms all 4 USB ports are working properly and I have uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers (dated 2005) (this was also not straightforward). At present he cannot use the USBs at all.
I have confirmed the printer on my own PC so it must be the Dell. I'm no hardware expert but wonder if it is the plug and play process that is causing the problem?
The machine is still under warranty but if there is a relatively quick and straightforward process to determine and correct the problem it would save a lot of time and effort.
Thank you for your help.
John B.