"HevetS" <steve.a.hawkins@ntlworld.com> hath wroth:

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

What exactly does the message say? Does it say that the device cannot
find a suitable driver, or some other error message?

The Inspiron 2600 has two USB 1.1 ports. You will have problems
trying to run a 802.11g wireless device without also installing a
PCMCIA USB 2.0 adapter.
<http://support2.jp.dell.com/docs/systems/ins2600/en/sm_en/specs.htm>
Note that when Dell conveniently leaves off the 1.1 or 2.0 suffix, it
invariably means it's USB 1.1.

<http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=103&categoryid=7>
The data sheet claims that it will work with USB 1.1.

>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).

What DLink adapter? What PC? What does this have to do with the
Insprion 2500 problem? If you're using this PC to test the Buffalo
USB device and are having problems, just find another PC. It's
possible to have multiple wireless devices and multiple wireless
managers on one machine, but I can't guarantee there will be no
conflicts.

>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.

Is the USB hub 1.1 or 2.0? (It doesn't matter, I'm just curious).
Does the hub have an external power supply? Many wireless devices
suck almost to the power limit of the USB port and will NOT work on a
non-powered USB 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.

Ah, much better description. That means that the Buffalo device
driver is either scrambled, missing, or screwed up. Try it this way
(in the order specified).
1. Unplug the BUFFALO WLI-U2-KG54-AI USB radio.
2. Uninstall the Buffalo driver and client manager using Add and
Remove. Also, clean up any mess you made mangling the USB drivers
using the latest downloads from the Dell site.
3. Reboot the computer.
4. Install the Buffalo software from the supplied CD or from the
latest version downloaded from their web pile. If downloaded, make
sure you get the right version:
<http://www.buffalo-technology.com/support/downloads-product.php?productid=103>
5. Plug in the WLI-US-KG54 when it asks and only when it asks. Since
you've already installed the driver, it should magically find the
driver and cease complaining.
6. Try connecting.

>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?]

By "it", I assume you mean the USB root hub driver. That's working
because you successfully used it with the flash drive. Leave it alone
or put it back. I can tell you how to remove it (if you insist), but
you'll just make a bigger mess.

>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...

Plug in the USB device all the way through, not half way.

In general, USB devices must have the drivers installed BEFORE
plugging the device into the computer. If you reverse the order, as
you apparently have, there's no control over what driver Windoze
Plug-n-Pray will try to install. On some USB devices (i.e. HP
printers), it makes a huge mess if you first plug in the device and
then try to install the driver. Follow the proceedure and only
install the device when the installer script asks for it, not before.

>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.

Sigh.
Right click on "My Computah" and select "Properties".
Hardware -> Device Manager
Find the Buffalo driver under "Network Adapters".
Right click and hit "delete".

>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.)

Ok, that's another way to vaporize the driver. I don't know the name
of the Buffalo device driver in the registry, but you might be able to
unzip the install script and see if you can find the *.REG files.
These are the files that are used to modify the registry. It should
have all the OID's in it along with the requisite names. There will
also be some dependencies so look around for values with the driver
name embedded.

>I don't know what to do now,

I do. Find another laptop or PC that you can mess with. Create a
Restore Point so you can put things back the way they were before you
attacked. In fact, plan on putting things back. This time, follow
the instructions and install the client manager and driver first,
before plugging in the USB device.

>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.

Fine. Go buy a $15 USB to PCI card. If it blows up, you're out only
a few dollars. Frankly, at this point, I wouldn't let you anywhere
near one of my computers.

>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.

Have you considered rolling back your computer using System Restore to
when it was working?

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

Well, troubleshooting hardware problems by email isn't easy. I
suspect that most of the people in the forum suspected that with the
degree of registry hacking you've done, the chances of getting this
working with a simple suggestion would be unlikely, especially since
there's a possibility that the hardware might be defective.

>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?

I actually had that happen to me almost exactly the way you describe
it, but with a printer. What I did was wrong was that I was in a
hurry. I had setup the USB printer according to instructions,
installed the driver, plugged it in, plug-n-pray did it's thing, and
it printed just fine. No problems and then I left (late as usual).

The problem was that I didn't reboot. The customer finally rebooted
the computer a few days later and was greeted with Norton Firewall
2005 demanding that the customer decide if this or that startup
program can be installed in the registry, and if this or that program
can connect to the internet, etc. The problem was that the default
was to *NOT* allow these programs to startup or connect. The customer
dutifully accepted the default on the assumption that Norton 2005
knows what to do. The result was a major troubleshooting exercise on
my part trying to figure out why the majority of the HP startup
programs were silently failing to run. After several tedious
uninstall/reinstall cycles, I finally found the culprit in the
firewall configuration. Any chance you did something similar?

Incidentally, I don't believe the data sheets claim that it will work
with USB 1.1. I've had a few too many problems when I've tried that.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558