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PC not recognizing my USB-connected Eris :(

B

brianjd

Newbie
I USED to be able to transfer files to my Vista32 machine from my Droid Eris (and vice versa) perfectly fine.

WHAT USED TO HAPPEN:
1) Connect Droid Eris to computer via mini-USB/USB cable
2) A little ding from the computer indicates it recognizes something was plugged into the USB port
3) the "safely remove hardware icon" would appear in the system tray of my computer
4) A "USB Connected" Notification would appear up in the notification bar of my Eris
5) Drag the notification bar down and select the "USB Connected" Notification
6) A prompt would come up on my Eris asking me if I'd like to "Mount"...I would.
7) A dialog would open on my computer asking me if I'd like to "Open files to view folders" along with a bunch of other options. In "My Computer" I'd see a drive "F:" for the Eris
8) Move files to and fro
9) When done moving files: close out all windows, open the "safely remove hardware" and click until hardware could safely be removed, unplug USB cable

THE RELATIONSHIP CHANGING EVENT:
Then one day while the USB cable was plugged in and I was happily transferring files I noticed that the safely remove hardware icon wasn't there. Once I was finished transferring files I thought, "Oh well, I'll make sure to close out all Eris related files/folders and just unplug the USB cable." Apparently that was a mistake. (3,7,8,9 are different from before while 1,2,4,5 are the same):

WHAT HAPPENS NOW:
1) Connect Droid Eris to computer via mini-USB/USB cable
2) A little ding from the computer indicates it recognizes something is plugged into the USB port
3) NO safely remove hardware icon appears
4) A "USB Connected" Notification appears up in the notification bar of my Eris
5) Drag the notification bar down and select the "USB Connected" Notification
6) A prompt comes up on my Eris asking me if I'd like to "Mount"...I would. (after selected the notifications changes to read "Select to turn off USB storage" indicating that the phone thinks something has happened
7) NO dialog opens on my computer and NO new drive appears in "My Computer"
8) I'm NOT able to move files to and fro
9) I just remove the cable

BIZARRE UPDATE:
1) I select the "HTC Sync"
notification on my Eris (Really no reason to do this. I don't have HTC Sync installed on my computer and have no need to use it. Just thought I'd select it and see what happens)
2) After some time, dialog "Next Step" comes up reading that the Eris is "Unable to find HTC Sync on [my] PC...". I select "OK"
3) Now a "safely remove hardward icon" appears in the system tray of my computer and I'm able to do all the file transferring I want, close, safely remove hardware, and start again.

ANOTHER PIECE OF INFO:
What "USED" to happen works perfectly find on my roommate's Vista32 machine indicating that there's maybe something funny happening on the PC side of my Eris-PC debacle.

PLEA FOR HELP:
Anyone have any clue what's going on? I've called Verizon--they have no clue. I've crawled over the forums and haven't found any problems that are too similar to this one. I just wish things could go back to the way they were. I'm afraid that a PC hard drive reformat is the only way to rekindle the old relationship my PC and Eris once had.
 
When connected via USB, go to device manager in Vista. See if there is a ! or error for the device. If so, right click it and hit uninstall driver. Disconnect Eris and plug back in. Windows will reinstall the drivers. Hope this helps.
 
If, while in device manager, you don't see your phone, right click on the Computer (top of list) and "Scan for new hardware"
 
@droidkevlar

There was nothing there. No dice. This was one step the Verizon tech support people actually took me through

@MOS95B

Would have tried your suggestion...but didn't see it prior to trying something else...which has actually had some success! I'll outline my steps which were adapted from the advice under the heading "Reinstall Drivers" here.

1) Make sure (a) PC is off, (b) Eris is on, (c) Eris is connected to PC via USB. Then boot up PC.
2) In the "Device Manager" of the PC I found something like "ADB Devices" at the top which had some HTC product under it. (I had never seen this before)
3) I downloaded and ran USBDeview as suggested in the thread
4) I found all devices with manufacturer ID "0bb4". There were 4 in total. Only 2 of them were actually marked as HTC devices. I assumed the remaining 2 were as well (because of the ID) and chose to "uninstall".
5) Nothing seemed to happen in USBDeview. So I tried "disable". Then "uninstall". Still wasn't getting any notifications. Assumed that something had happened and closed out
6) Now when I went to "Device Manager" there was yellow "!" notification next to that HTC product under ADB Devices which I had mentioned earlier. I chose the "uninstall" option there as well.
7) When I rebooted my computer device drivers installed, a "safely remove hardware icon appeared in my PC system tray, I was able to mount and transfer files...all the stuff that was going right before until...

Now when trying to "safely remove hardware"--after having closed out all programs--I get the message:

"PROBLEM EJECTING USB MASS STORAGE DEVICE
Windows can't stop your 'HTC Android Phone USB Device' device because a program is still using it. Close any programs that might be using the device, and then try again later."

This wasn't happening before. Any clues? If it persists I'll post it in a new thread. If not I'll post my solution here.

Thx to everyone for the help so far. I really appreciate it.
 
UPDATE:

I'm embarrassed. I just need to select "unmount" on my Droid Eris before selecting "Safely Remove Hardware" on my PC. When done in that order everything worked fine. I was a little thrown off by the Droid Eris message saying that I had to unmount on the host prior to selecting "unmount" on the Eris.
 
HELP please --- I have Win XP Home Edition and HTC Eris (which I love). However, I seem to have lost the ability to mount / unmount the Eris as a USB drive a few days ago. I HAVE previously (2 weeks ago) transferred files from/to my sd card successfully, HOWEVER I can no longer do so. Regardless of whether I have USB debugging set or not, I no longer see the "Mount USB" Notification. It just "disappeared".

What's wrong and how can I get it back?

I tried a reboot (removing the battery), didn't help.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time.
 
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