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my new HP laptop is not recognizing any external devices?

It is an HP G56 with windows 7 on it. It seemed to be working fine so far but there is absolutely no reaction from the laptop when I plug in my printer (have downloaded the correct driver), my external hard drive (have installed the CD) my digital camera etc. I have dealt with number of new computers over the years and this has never happened. Am completely stumped... where do I start? Could it be a fault in the computer? Thanks everyone!

Public Comments

1. This does indeed sound as if it is a hardware problem relating to the USB ports. I assume you have tried all the USB ports... it has three USB ports listed in the description, which would mean that there are at least two USB hubs on the motherboard. It shouldn't matter though, as one of those devices that you listed should have prompted a response from the laptop. I can see how if you plugged the printer in BEFORE you installed the drivers, it might not work properly, but it still should have indicated that a device was plugged in. The external hard drive should not have required software be installed in order for the laptop to pop up a dialog saying that something was plugged in. The digital camera... well, that's different. But two out of three should have provoked a response. You should be on the phone with HP. http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/contact/phone_assist.html#section1 Now, tech support may insist that you perform a factory recovery, basically erasing everything from your laptop and reinstalling Windows from scratch. This is because they need to know that there is nothing wrong with the software environment before they can assume that it is a hardware issue. I know that this would be an annoying step, but understand that if and when you ship it to them, they are most likely going to do it anyway. So burn the data you want to keep to DVD, and be ready for it. end of line