Media for BUFFALO WLI-U2-KG54-AI USB adaptor stopped being 'recognized'

BUFFALO WLI-U2-KG54-AI USB adaptor stopped being 'recognized'

Managed trouble free use of this device for several days on Dell Inspiron

2600 laptop, before laptop says device is not recognized.

ON our pc, the device is first recognized as a disc drive, then changes as the onboard set up programme starts (have not fully tested device on the pc because it interferes with the on board D-Link adaptor settings).

On the laptop the USB ports work fine for other memory sticks and a USB minihub, but the Buffalo is 'not recognized' even when connected via this hub.

Have read around the messages and advice on USB issues, and as a result have updated BIOS and tried 'uninstalling' the root hubs and rebooting. All that happens is that the hubs reload 'your new hardware is being installed', then the 'device not recognized or has malfunctioned etc.' pop up comes up and 'unknown device' appears in Device Manager.

After a lot of reading and searching I found the USB Hub driver set for the Inspiron's chip set at Dell and downloaded this, but got to the end of the install process only to be informed by the installer that the install was not necessary because all the components were already there... [Should I have uninstalled these first: if so, how?]

Trying installing drivers from Buffalo's set up disc is not an option, because it asks for the device to be plugged in half way through...

On the other hand, when I ask the disc to uninstall the drivers which were presumed to have been automatically installed by the device: it says there aren't any to uninstall, even though it had worked fine for several days.

There were no references to Buffalo on the laptop, except in the registry - particularly in a series under 'USBSTOR'. I thought perhaps that these needed to be removed in order to allow the device to 'try again' at installing itself and being recognized. After several goes at deleting these were denied, I found that their properties sheets did not give full permission to administrators: after adding this, all deleted ok; unfortunately the device still remains stubbournly 'unrecognized'! (All the other devices in the UBSTOR do work fine.)

I don't know what to do now, as Buffalo say, 'if it is recognized by the pc it must be the laptop at fault', and have not replied when I pointed out that it was just as logical to say that the Buffalo was at fault because other USB devices work just fine on the same laptop ports, and that the adaptor may have even damaged the laptop and so it would be foolish to risk damaging any other equipment with it.

I have put this question to the Dell user forum, and had no replies; a few replies in the microsoft.public.windows.networking.wireless group began to look useful, but then these went dead too. Dell UK does not seem to allow users to e-mail questions directly to the support staff once past the guarantee stage; and the US branch requires a US phone number before you can put your question.

All rather a turn off, after spending some time researching the options, before choosing this particular set up!

Can anyone out there help to explain what is going on and how this USB adaptor can be recognized by one machine and not another in which it was perfectly happy for several days?

Please HELP,

Steve_H