Windows 10: USB Devices are always Unspecified

Hi


A few days ago I was trying to use the scanner on my (Canon) printer - but when I plugged the USB cable into my laptop and went into Devices and Printers, I could see the printer name but the icon was different, and I couldn't click on it and view all the details like normal.

On some level it was still being recognised as a printer and I got the scanner to work.

Somehow while trying to fix the problem I found a different version of Devices and Printers that split all the devices into categories, and the printer was listed under 'unknown devices'


Today I plugged in my external hard drive which only contains photos. By default I have it set to 'arrange by month' so I can see the photos in a logical order, but the only 'arrange by' it was letting me use was 'arrange by folder'. Trying to arrange by anything else left me with a message saying 'this folder is empty' - despite me having about 700GBs worth of photos on there.

Checked in device manager - of course the external drive has been listed under 'unspecified'.


So basically, everything I plug into my laptop now comes up as 'unspecified' and has limited functionality. I've been through the usual stuff with Windows Troubleshooter, asking it to check for the latest drivers or check for errors with the devices - it hasn't turned up anything wrong.


Through experimenting with things, I've found that stuff behaves normally if I have it already plugged in when I turn my computer on, which would explain why my wireless mouse is still working just fine, since it's always plugged in.


So what has my computer done to unexpectedly stop recognising USB devices overnight, and how do I fix it?


Cheers


Tim

:)

 

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