Windows 7 won't install USB devices

I am helping a friend with their computer. It won't install usb devices. They show up in the device manager, so Windows is getting their device and manufacturer ID, but won't install any drivers. This seems to be the case will all usb devices, from flash drives to mice. Windows updates, however, do seem to work fine.

I have run Malwarebytes, Super Anti Spyware, SFC, Disk Check and pulled their drive and put it in my computer to do a virus scan.

Ideas of where to look next?

is the fash drive cruptred??

Maybe some screen shots of device manager if you can. Check the system logs for any warnings or errors related to the usb controller or the devices themselves. What types of usb devices are you trying? have you tried any externally powered usb devices? I have seen issues with the usb ports not providing enough current cause weird problems.

I will post a screen shot. It seems to be for everything, from flash drives, mice, card readers, usb cdroms, etc. I have a hard time believing that there is a limit to the number of devices per port, esp sense this computer sees light use and has had maybe 10 different USB devices in it in it's life time.

Attached is the screenshot. There are no errors in the event log other than Google Update Services. No hardware events at all.

 

A few things I found that you can try - http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/86442-unable-install-any-usb-devices.html#post1014226
 http://www.rushinformation.com/how-to-delete-usb-device-history-windows/
 http://pcsupport.about.com/od/driverssupport/ht/upperfilters-lowerfilters.htm

None worked. I am going to try Hirens and see if Hirens can detect them.

 

Edit: USB devices work in Hirens...

Do the USB devices actually work properly in a LIVE environment (like Linux live CD) I'm sure Hirens has a live distro you can load. 

Yeah they do, the machine can boot to the USB and can use the devices inside of a live env

 

Ah, sometimes you have to go look up the drivers for your device and manually install them. Not everything is plug and play. One thing i have to say i hated about win seven is the automatic driver manager. If your using a cheap usb hub for all those devices, Try rebalancing your devices across all your usb ports.

At this point i have to assume either it's malware/virus, or some major Windows corruption of some sort. When is the last time you can remember it working properly. Try to do a restore point to that time and see what happens. Outside of that - re-install.

 

Normally I would agree, except I've never had a flash drive not auto install. Unless there was no internet maybe. 

Ya, i have had usb hubs cause that very issue. The problem was with the usb hub and its drivers. If its a powered hub, just unplug the hub and power it down. Maybe, rearrange your devices and double check the hub drivers. May also be a case of windows power management trying to power save that usb connection. I would look closely for malware tho. Avast boot scan is useful.

Restore points are unsuccessful. I presume some system corruption, but the system does pass sfc and chkdsk. I am going to start scrounging for a fixit for this.

Personally, i would not allow windows update to be the one updating device drivers. I would wipe the old drivers and manually install the latest driver for each device.( but thats just me :)  )

 

good luck finding a driver for a generic USB flash drive though. 

point lol