Managed trouble free use of this device for several days on Dell
Inspiron
2600 laptop, before laptop says device is not recognized.

ON our pc, the device is first recognized as a disc drive, then
changes as
the onboard set up programme starts (have not fully tested device on
the pc
because it interferes with the on board D-Link adaptor settings).

On the laptop the USB ports work fine for other memory sticks and a
USB
minihub, but the Buffalo is 'not recognized' even when connected via
this
hub.

Have read around the messages and advice on USB issues, and as a
result have
updated BIOS and tried 'uninstalling' the root hubs and rebooting.
All that
happens is that the hubs reload 'your new hardware is being
installed', then
the 'device not recognized or has malfunctioned etc.' pop up comes up
and
'unknown device' appears in Device Manager.

After a lot of reading and searching I found the USB Hub driver set
for the
Inspiron's chip set at Dell and downloaded this, but got to the end of
the
install process only to be informed by the installer that the install
was
not necessary because all the components were already there... [Should
I have uninstalled these first: if so, how?]

Trying installing drivers from Buffalo's set up disc is not an
option,
because it asks for the device to be plugged in half way through...

On the other hand, when I ask the disc to uninstall the drivers which
were
presumed to have been automatically installed by the device: it says
there
aren't any to uninstall, even though it had worked fine for several
days.

There were no references to Buffalo on the laptop, except in the
registry -
particularly in a series under 'USBSTOR'. I thought perhaps that
these
needed to be removed in order to allow the device to 'try again' at
installing itself and being recognized. After several goes at
deleting these were denied, I found that their properties sheets did
not give full permission to administrators: after adding this, all
deleted ok; unfortunately the device still remains stubbournly
'unrecognized'! (All the other devices in the UBSTOR do work fine.)

I don't know what to do now, as Buffalo say, 'if it is recognized by
the pc
it must be the laptop at fault', and have not replied when I pointed
out
that it was just as logical to say that the Buffalo was at fault
because
other USB devices work just fine on the same laptop ports, and that
the
adaptor may have even damaged the laptop and so it would be foolish to
risk
damaging any other equipment with it.

I have put this question to the Dell user forum, and had no replies; a
few replies in the microsoft.public.windows.networking.wireless group
began to look useful, but then these went dead too. Dell UK does not
seem to allow users to e-mail questions directly to the support staff
once past the guarantee stage; and the US branch requires a US phone
number before you can put your question.

All rather a turn off, after spending some time researching the
options, before choosing this particular set up!

Can anyone out there help to explain what is going on and how this USB
adaptor can be recognized by one machine and not another in which it
was perfectly happy for several days?

Please HELP,

Steve_H