Help, For the USB Devices That Have No Name

[ourchair]

I'm hardly an expert, but I've never heard of the BIOS having anything to do wth functionality over a USB device.

What I meant was that there might have been some setting within the BIOS that would affect the way it 'reads' the device, rather than it actually influencing the device.

Or am I just being silly? Things sure got confusing for me past the DOS years.

 

[ourchair]

Seems like Windows has locked out your iPod.

Oh man, I missed this post. Probably cause it came a minute before my last one.

Anyway, why would it 'lock' out my iPod? Is it refusing to recognize it in the same way one would not be able to plug your iPod into somebody else's computer? That seems silly to me, because it doesn't explain why it would do the same thing to my flash drive unless there is a COMMON reason why both devices would be 'locked out' (yet still recognized on the new hardware panel).

 

[Fredrik Martinsson]

Oh man, I missed this post. Probably cause it came a minute before my last one.

Anyway, why would it 'lock' out my iPod? Is it refusing to recognize it in the same way one would not be able to plug your iPod into somebody else's computer? That seems silly to me, because it doesn't explain why it would do the same thing to my flash drive unless there is a COMMON reason why both devices would be 'locked out' (yet still recognized on the new hardware panel).

I have heard that if windows find something wrong with a device (like it shouldn't be there if you restore Windows to an earlier point before you installed it the first time) then it locks it out as a precaution.

 

[ourchair]

I have heard that if windows find something wrong with a device (like it shouldn't be there if you restore Windows to an earlier point before you installed it the first time) then it locks it out as a precaution.

I doubt it, but even then how would one go about unlocking it?

I tried checking Apple Support (i usually avoid visiting website support because most of that stuff is rather patronizingly unhelpful (i.e. "Your video card is broken? Please make sure you have updated drivers" or "Clean your CD drive") and it was a step in the right direction since it linked to a Microsoft page that posed a problem pretty much in synch with mine:

"A computer that is running Windows XP cannot detect a USB thumb drive, an Apple iPod, or an external hard disk drive"

Now, it suggests I mess around with the registry and the problem is, I did, but REGEDIT won't let me delete the keys I'm being asked to delete. What's up with that?

 

[Fredrik Martinsson]

Probably because the registry keys are being used by some program and because of that has been made "write protected". Try rebooting XP in Fail Safe mode and remove them.

 

[ourchair]

Probably because the registry keys are being used by some program and because of that has been made "write protected". Try rebooting XP in Fail Safe mode and remove them.

Will do.

Tomorrow.

I sleep now and dream of Warren Ellis' daughter.

 

[ourchair]

Does anybody know any alternative means of editing the registry? I'm just about to leave the house so I don't have time to mess with the problem, let alone research it.

I tried running WinXP in Safe Mode and Debugging Mode and I'm still being prevented from deleting the registry key I'm told to mess with. Perhaps there's a way to do it from a command prompt boot or something similar?

 

[Fredrik Martinsson]

Try this: http://www.databack4u.com/snc/rtkf_eng.html

 

[ourchair]

I propose that this thread and any other tech-related q&a threads be merged together to form a single tech support thread. Because I realize I am flooding the site now with too many threads like this.

Anyway, I finally solved the problem two months ago. It involved purging a broken Virtual DAEMON tool device off the registry using an executable. My iPod works now. Belated thanks to Ultimate Warrior for his patience and assistance.

Here's another question. Does anybody know if files in the root director with extension IDX are of any importance?

If they're not critical to anything I'd like to delete them as the formatting of my C & D drive is old-style, making each allocation unit 32 kilobytes in size. They haven't been modified by any application since 2004 and I haven't the foggiest clue what they're doing outside of eating up 800MB of space.