What is USB?

Gone are the days when the attachment of new peripherals to one’s PC was a black art, practiced only by the brave and foolhardy.  Now the Universal Serial Bus allows you to attach all kinds of things as easily as plugging the kettle into the mains…well, almost.

PCs and peripherals used to come with an array of different serial and parallel port connections with reliability and compatibility issues.  A number of the large hardware and software companies decided to do something about this in the mid-90s and the Universal Serial Bus standard was born.

If you have problems with a new piece of equipment that you want to attach to your PC using a USB connection, then you may find that the driver software hasn't loaded properly.  Driver software is the middle-man between the operating system and the device itself and facilitates communication between the two.  These days PC operating systems are pretty good at identifying the correct drivers or at least guiding you through the process to load the drivers yourself.

However, if you do run into problems it's usually good practice to install the drivers before you connect the new device for the first time.  If you've already connected the device and want to start from scratch you need to go into your Device Manager (assuming you're using Windows) and delete the device from your PC first - then load the drivers from either the accompanying CD or from the manufacturers website.

You can get to the Device Manager by going to your Control Panel and double clicking the System icon then the Device Manager tab (or System & Security>System and then Device Manager on the left)   If you can find your equipment anywhere in the list shown, select it and press Delete. Close all system properties dialog.  Unplug your equipment from the PC.  Install the drivers that came with your equipment, usually on a CD, and then try connecting it again.