Batboard

Here's my situation:

Sony Vaio desktop, with 233 MHz Pentium II, on an Intel AL440LX mobo. The mobo has onboard USB, and originally came with Win95 installed. Unfortunately, I do not have the original disks that came with it. I have a copy of Win95 Plus (version 4.00.950B), which is supposed to support USB, and it does have a USB driver utility on the CD. The problem is that I can't get the USB drive to work. Windows does recognize it, but will not make it work. It shows up under the Device Manager screen with a yellow question mark beside it. I have installed the USB driver utility on the Windows CD, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I do also have the proper chipset drivers for the mobo installed. Any ideas?

Windows 95 probably doesn't support the USB device you're trying to use, or, you need to load the manufacturers driver that came on a floppy or CD when you purchased the USB device.

Most later Windows O/S's (Windows ME and later, IIRC) are loaded with generic drivers that make most USB devices plug 'n play. However, that's usually not the case with Windows 95 and 98. They almost always require a manufacturers device driver be installed.

BTW, what kind of USB device are you trying to use?

Terry

I'm trying to use a USB memory stick. I may be mistaken, but I really don't think anything will work, as its shown with a problem in device manager.

You absolutely need to install the proper driver for a memory stick reader/writer, if one is available. Later memory stick readers don't even offer drivers for Windows 95.

You can just plug your usb memory stick reader into any Windows 2000 or XP machine and start using it, but not so on Windows 95 unless you can find a driver.

Your device manager is recognizing that something has been plugged into the USB port on your VAIO, but without the driver it doesn't recognize what the device is, and it can't work, thus the yellow QUESTION MARK.

Just because the USB drivers are installed doesn't mean that the device drivers are installed. The fact that the device shows in device manager suggests that the USB drivers are in fact working. All of those memory stick devices are plug and play in Win2K and beyond, but definitely not in Win95. You need to go to the website of the device that you have and see if they have a Win95 driver for your device. Be aware, some manufacturers never wrote drivers for Win95, so you might be out of luck anyway.

Ya'll missed something here: The yellow question mark shows up with nothing plugged into the port. It shows up referring to the port itself.

Check out this site:

http://www.usbman.com/Win95%20USB%20Guide.htm

Basically, your "B" version of Win95 contains rudimentary USB support, but it's very limited. Read through the article to see if there's anything you might've missed, but I'd recommend going with Win98SE.

Todd

Your driver may not be compatible with your OS anyway just read this article it might help you with your problems http://www.cwdixon.com/support/win98_su ... rivers.htm

Just to update, I have the USB support working. Thanks for all the help!