Three days ago I ran into a curios problem with my USB mouse and USB drives: they are no longer detected upon Windows startup. The USB keyboard and some other USB devices (Huion tablet, Asus wireless adapter, Brother printer) work as expected.

It went down unexpectedly while I was working on my XPS 8300 on Dec 5: the USB optical mouse cursor disappeared. I checked the Windows update history and noticed that two driver updates had recently been installed:

  Intel - Other hardware - Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D

  Intel - Other hardware - Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C26

The system had made two unsuccessful attempts to install these updates on Dec 4 and Dec 5, and then one successful attempt on Dec 5. No other updates have been installed since Dec 3.

I restored the system to a restore point dated Dec 3 and restarted the system: the issue persisted. Then I reinstalled the two driver updates using Windows update: the issue still persists.

I opened Device Manager and noticed un "Unknown device" under Other devices. Upon trying to update the driver for this device, I got an error message reading that the driver installation file for this device is missing a necessary entry:

I uninstalled this "Unknown device" and scanned for hardware changes. Under "Human Interface Devices" I got a new entry with a yellow exclamation mark: "Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse v2.0".

 

I tried updating the driver for this item using option "Search automatically for updated driver software" and I got the same error message as above; at the same time the entry under HID disappeared and the previous "Unknow device" entry popped up again under "Other devices".

If instead of choosing to search automatically for updated driver software I choose "Let me pick from a list...", I can pick one of the mouse drivers that are currently installed on my machine:

However, no matter which one I pick I still get the error message shown in the first screen shot.

Interestingly, if I try to troubleshoot Windows in command prompt mode, the USB mouse works. It doesn't if I restart Windows in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking though.

USB drives and a wireless mouse that uses a USB port also don't work (icons with yellow exclamation marks show in Device Manager).

Luckily, the USB keyboard works and I can use the tablet pen as a temporary mouse replacement.

I ran a "missing driver" seeking program and it seems that four important drivers may be missing or corrupt (see screen shot below). I downloaded recent versions the second (basic optical mouse) and fourth (SMBus) ones from a Microsoft site but they are only available as .cab files, which I was unable to install.

Any idea what is going on? Anybody experienced similar USB mouse issues recently?