Have you tried different USB ports?

 

Steve

Hi Steve, yes I have tried the adaptor in different ports - no difference.

Every time a USB gadget is plugged into and then removed it leaves a ghost of itself behind. This can confuse old mr windows.

 Because the ghosts are still there when the USB item was inserted the comp didn’t recognise it because it thought it was already there. Pulling out and reinserting doesn’t help because xp suspends the 'ports' when this is done repeatedly. When this happens you get nothing, no error and nothing at all showing in device manager. On reboot depending on the ‘USB stack’ sometimes it will work if luck is on you side (again depending on the USB stack)

 

What is needed is the ghosts to be exercised (spooky).  To do this, first unplug the netgear adaptor

 Right click my comp then properties then choose advanced tab.

 

Click on ‘environment variables’ down at the bottom of the page.

Choose new in the SYSTEM variables box.  (if you choose User box the changes are only made to that particular user)._

A new Box will open..

 

In Variable name type: DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES

In Variable value type: 1

 

Then click ok, ok and ok..

 

Now open up device manager. Right click my comp,properties,hardware,device manager.  Click view and show hidden devices.

 

This will now show the usual hidden devices and the Ghosted ones. The Ghosted ones are recognisable as they are shadowed/greyed out. Expand Network adaptors and get rid of the ghosted netgear adaptor entries. (there may be a few)

Expand your USB controllers, there should be quite a few ghosts showing, uninstall each of these are they are not present on the computer.  Check if you now have an entry (a ghosted one) of other devices too. Uninstall all those ghosts too.  In my case I went through every item in device manager and got rid of all my ghosts. Now unplug ALL usb devices and reboot twice. Have a nice clean stack of USB’s available.

 

Once rebooted all usb’s will or should be recognised again.

 

 

Thanks Rysma, I did all you said and got rid of all the ghosts.
Initially I had severe problems booting up after reinstall of the adaptor. I got the dreaded blue screen with a BAD_POOL_HEADER message and system froze. After some googling I found that this was probably due to bad Netgear drivers and eventually I got everything off and re-installed again. I've got it working fine once more but I am back to square one in that I have to unplug and plug back in for it to be seen. It does not show in DM on boot up in either Network Adaptors or in any of the USB ports.
I have a feeling that the Netgear drivers are no use as I still cannot open the configuration utility even although it is seen as running in Services. Having read some other forums someone has suggested that I install the drivers for v2 ( I have been trying the proper v1 drivers) so I think I'll give this a try and see how it goes. Netgear have discontinued this model and I don't think they any concerns about support for it. There is a link for a hotfix for this model in regard to SP2 as they obviously were having problems, but when you click on it you are taken back to the support page - pretty hopeless!
I had a nosey at the other hotfixes and they open up for download no bother - and there is one for the v2 drivers, so I'll see what happens and I'll post further feedback here. Thanks again"

Update after trying new driver(s).

Firstly tried the v2 drivers which would not work at all. I then tried letting windows search for drivers and it installed no problem and worked perfectly well first time. BUT, again, after reboot it disappears and it's back to where I was before. I have eventually spoken to Netgear who have deemed that the unit is faulty ( although I doubt this very much ) and they have organised to collect it and send out another. This may take a week or so and I'll again update this post after I have installed the new adaptor. In the meantime I'm back to the wires all over the floor!

On another note in regard to what you said earlier - Will it be okay to/should I remove every single "ghost" item in DM? i.e, not only the ones in Networking and USB? Any advice on this.

Thanks again.

 

Just a further piece of information : I tried plugging other devices into the same USB port ( Ipod and card reader ) and it recognises them instantly. I am a little scared to reboot without using the remove hardware tab with these devices as I don't want to incur any damage. In hindsight, perhaps this is what is causing the problem and, maybe, the unit is faulty as a direct result of unplugging. There was no remove hardware safely icon in the task bar when it was running when the adaptor was plugged in - unlike any other item that is plugged in whilst in use.

I removed all the ghosted entries from my sons and my own computer.  Ghosted entries  are not things on your computer just a left over from things that WERE on it.  Pity it didnt work, maybe you will have better luck with the new adaptor.  It worked a charm for my son.  He had the same problem but gradually got worse, had to plug and unplug serveral times before it was accepted.  hence I searched and finally found the above solution and have never had a problem since.

 

It is always best to use a back USB outlet also rather than the front ones especially for the wireles adaptor.  You can get little usb extension cords to make this more accessable. 

 

One other thing trying disabling the windows zero configuration.  That way your computer will only look for your wireless connection instead of searching for others. to do this right click my computer and then choose manage. expand services and applications and then pick services. scroll down to near the bottom and double click on windows zero configuration.  when the new window opens select stop, then where it says automatic,drop down the box and pick disable.  This does not effect the working of your computer, it only stops windows searching for wireless signals that way yours in theory be the only one picked. This can be easily changed back if no difference is detected.

 

good luck

Hi Rysma and thanks again. I will let you know how things develop when I get the new adaptor.

 

So, are you saying - Remove all ghosts?

 

There are quite a lot in the tab labelled Non Plug and Play Drivers,  so I'm a bit cautious and haven't touched these - as yet.

 

Neil, I am so glad all is ok.  As for the ghosts, they are fine to remove.  They are NOT things on your computer, just remnants of what has been used in the past.  Anyway goondonya!!!