All four USB ports in my Toshiba Satellite A105 laptop fail to work with a USB flash drive
I have Toshiba Satellite A105 laptop. I have never used any USB devices before and today I bought a new USB flash drive. For some reason, when I plug it into the laptop, it doesn’t work. I’ve tried all 4 USB ports without any luck. The drive works fine with my desktop computer. Do you know what is wrong with my laptop?
I think I know what is wrong with your laptop. Last Friday I fixed Toshiba Satellite A105-S1013 laptop with exactly the same problem. The laptop didn’t recognize my USB flash drive. Apparently the device was detected by Windows because as soon as I plugged it in, a balloon pooped up and it said “USB Device Not Recognized”. I tried to plug in three different devices and always got the same error. I found that this laptop is running BIOS v1.20 not even listed on Toshiba website for this model. I downloaded and installed the latest BIOS v1.90 and fortunately it fixed the problem. You can download the latest BIOS from Toshiba support website and install it right from the Windows environment.
June 11th, 2010 at 5:56 am
Toshiba A105, Vista: USB ports on one side were always crapping out sporadically. Had it checked out under warranty and seems it was delivered with a defective HD. Worked fine for several months, then the USB problem resurfaced. Now it periodically gives a “USB not recognized” error when nothing is plugged in to the port, does a hex dump & reboots. No more toshibas for me.
May 9th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
I also tried ubuntu linux 9.10 on my Toshiba Satellite P15-S479. This is in addition to the various windows versions I tried that I stated about earlier. So this just confirms again to me that it is a hardware/component level problem on the motherboard of my toshiba laptop. Still hoping that someone can give me some insight on what the problem is. At least tell me what chip that controls the usb ports, ie southbridge, northbridge, some other chip, etc. Oh currently my work around is by using a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card.
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:04 am
After doing some research, it looks like it is the southbridge failure or some other chip that is soldered on the main board (mother board). I had an issue with a hp laptop that would not turn on. Turns out that the fins on the heat sync were clogged up, which generated more heat inside the laptop which in turn caused a chip close by to unsolder. The hair line gap between the pins of the chip and mother board was not visible. After some research I found out that it needed to be taken apart and re-soldered. After it worked like the day I first got it. So to me it looks like the same thing or similar is up with these toshiba laptops. I also have a Satellite P15-S479 and when I plug a usb flash stick into the port the light comes on, on my flash stick but device does not pop up in my computer. Same thing with usb wireless mouse. I have reinstalled windows xp, then installed windows 7 and its still same issue. I also updated the bios and still nothing. So in conclusion its a component level issue on the main board its self. Now if only some one can tell me which chip I need to re-solder.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:52 am
My usb ports failed (“usb device not recognized” and no power lights to the devices) about a week ago, so I unplugged the power + battery and waited for a couple of hours. Ports came back to life, but my logitech usb keyboard was now simply recognized as a HID keyboard.
This weekend, I lost all 4 ports again. Nothing is recognized.
I got desperate and called toshiba tech support for my Satellite A134-52386. They were no help.
I’ve uninstalled the ports and flashed to BIOS v1.4 (there is a BIOS 1.6, but toshiba downloads does not show it when I select my vista OS.) Should I try BIOS 1.6?
Ubuntu does not recognize the drives, and I will be checking with a Linux CD next, but I’m guessing that this may be a hardware problem with my 2 year old laptop.
Any other suggestions to troubleshoot this as a hardware or software issue? It seems to be a huge problem for people.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
I was also having trouble with my usb ports, so I deleted them, only I don’t have the recovery disk to reinstall them. I’ve updated the bios and all that, but now I don’t have any root hub driver and I can’t seem to find it anywhere… I need the root hub driver for my Toshiba Satellite Laptop, Model # A105 S4254. I am running Windows XP Media Center Edition, Version 2002 SP3. Any ideas?
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:17 am
i wasted 9 hours for the solution still nothing appreciated .
I think the best solution is buy new laptop. There is not a complex solution yet.