T42 (Windows 7 Ultimate): Trouble with USB ports

[mountainbreeze]

Spent hours searching, reading, applying. Still no luck so re-posting a common trouble in hopes of a modern answer.

T42, 60 GB HDD, 2 GB RAM: I wiped the drive and installed Windows 7 Ultimate, 32-bit and nothing more. Windows is up to date with current service pack. Also installed USB and other drivers from Lenovo website. Still, USB ports will not work. I have wiped and installed fresh at least 12 times over the years, this is first time I had a problem with USB.

I did not install any of the Lenovo/IBM software from the homemade recovery disk set before installing OS. But I Did try manual install of uSB drivers from these disks - no luck.

It is recognized when any device is plugged in but I get the popup "USB Device Not Recognized". Have uninstalled and scanned for hardware changes, attempted manual driver updates, attempted automated driver search and update with Lenovo utility. Does this sound like the known Southbridge or are do I still have hope. Hate to throw my T42 out!

Thank you

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

Did your USB ports work before installing W7?

Can you boot a "live" Linux CD/DVD and check whether they work there?

[Johan]

Agree with George!

One possibility is to get the free mini-XP from a Linux-CD. If you have access to another PC, you may download this file (it's about 593 MB), from e.g. here. The download contain a so-called ISO-file, which may be burned into a bootable CD... see how e.g. here. Boot on this CD, then try out your USB-ports... if they're OK, then your hardware is functioning (at least under XP!).

Good luck getting your T42 up and running with Windows 7 (I'm running Win 7 Ultimate on a couple of T42p's; no problems at all with USB).

PS: I updated the thread-title to be a litle more descriptive...

Johan