Okay. Here's an interesting PC problem for you. (USB - Serial, COM LPT)

Sheep

Using a generic USB to serial to console into Cisco stuff. Worked fine for two weeks. Under device manager there was Ports (COM and LPT) and open that up and I had the USB device set for COM 3. As I said, no problems.

Yesterday I was working on some configs in a switch. Got an error, so I just closed everything down, unplugged the USB cord, plugged it back in, opened everything up and had no problems. Finished up. Closed out SecureCRT, disconnected the cable, shut down, laptop stayed in my bag all night.

Come in today, tried to console in, kept getting an error.

"Unable to open serial port COM3: The system cannot find the file specified."

So... Unplug cable, plug it back in. Nothing. No "Found new Hardware". Nothing.

Check device manager and Ports (COM and LPT) is missing. View> Hidden. There it is, but without the driver for my USB to serial. Remove it, try to reinstall, Windows can't find a driver.

I keep screwing around with it, but Ports (COM and LPT) is gone completely, not even under hidden options. Windows will not find a driver for it.

Gonna leave PC in with PC Tech but I'd like to get this fixed myself if possible since that would let me keep the PC and continue my work instead of waiting for them to get it back to me.

TIA!

pacbowl

Use the driver CD that same with the serial adapter, or google the manufacturer and see if you can download it.

Sheep

No manufacturer. Completely generic. Ended up getting it working though. Thanks.

Satsumomo

Was it disabled under BIOS? Because that's what happened to me.. after 2 hours wondering why a damn printer that was working perfectly before was suddenly not being recognized at all... all I had to do was re-enable LPT ports in the BIOS.

Sheep

COM and LPT is still missing in the Device Manager. I anticipate problems with this in the future.

I'll check the BIOS though. Thanks!

corky842

I had this problem with a camera once. It wouldn't recognize it at all, and the fix was to go in the registry and delete every instance of it in there. (Searched for "Olympus" and delete everything i found.) Probably a bit overkill, but no problems with it since.