If your external USB device is not recognized by Windows 10, and meet Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) error in Device Manager, use solutions here to troubleshoot and fix the error.

One of the main reasons why “USB not recognized” trouble occurs is having an outdated driver. In such a case, search for device manager in windows 10 search box. If you find a driver with an error message like “Unknown Device” or “Unidentified USB device”, then right click the particular driver and click update. Solved: I know this has been asked before but none of the supplied answers or drivers have solved my issue. HP 8460p Windows 10 pro 64 bit unknown - 7059777.

As you have noticed, the USB Device in Device Manager has a yellow triangle on it:

The error can be caused by hardware issues. So first, follow below simple instructions to do the troubleshooting.

1. Try the device on a different USB port. This will figure out if problem is caused by a broken port.

2. Connect the device to another PC. This will figure out if the external device has problem.

If there is no problem with the USB port and the device, read on and try the following methods. You can start at the top of the list and work your way down.

Method 1: Remove the Power Supply
Method 2: Uninstall the USB Driver in Device Manager
Method 3 : Update the USB Driver
Method 4: Disable Fast Startup
Method 5: Change the USB Selective Suspend Settings

Method 1: Remove the Power Supply

This method will fix the problem magically if the problem is caused by Power Supply.

1. Remove the Power Supply plug from PC.

2. Re-plug in the Power Supply.

3. Restart the PC and connect the device to the USB port.

Unknown Usb Device Error

Method 2: Uninstall the USB Driver in Device Manager

Follow these steps:

1. Open Device Manager and expand category Universal Serial Bus Controllers and locate the USB device which is not being recognized by Windows.

2. Right-click on the device and select Uninstall from the context menu.

3. After finishing the uninstallation, restart your PC then Windows will reinstall the device automatically.

Method 3 : Update the USB Driver

The problem can be caused by faulty USB driver. In this case, updating driver would fix the problem.

If you’re not confident playing around with drivers manually, you can do it automatically with Driver Easy.

Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for it. You don’t need to know exactly what system your computer is running, you don’t need to risk downloading and installing the wrong driver, and you don’t need to worry about making a mistake when installing.

You can update your drivers automatically with either the FREE or the Pro version of Driver Easy. But with the Pro version it takes just 2 clicks (and you get full support and a 30-day money back guarantee):

1. Downloadand install Driver Easy.

2. Run Driver Easy and clickScan Nowbutton. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.

3. Click theUpdate button next to a flagged USB driver to automatically download and install the correct version of this driver (you can do this with the FREE version). Or clickUpdate All to automatically download and install the correct version ofallthe drivers that are missing or out of date on your system (this requires the Pro version – you’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All).

Method 4: Disable Fast Startup

If Windows is booting quickly,the external device may not be detected before the boot is completed, then the problem will occur. In this case, disabling the fast boot option in Power Options can resolve the problem.

1. Press Win+R (Windows logo key and R key) at the same time. A Run dialog box will appear.

2. Type control in the run box and click OK button. This is to open Control Panel.

3. View by Large Icons and click on Power Options.

4. Select Choose what the power buttons do in left pane.

5. Click on Change settings that are corrently unavailable.

6. Under Shutdown settings, uncheck the box next to Turn on fast startup (recommended). Then click on Save changes button.

7. Restart your PC and see if the problem resolves. Note your PC will boot a little slower.

Method 5: Change the USB Selective Suspend Settings

Follow these steps:

1. In Power Options,click on Show additional plans. (If you tried Method 2, you must know how to go to Power Options. If not, go back to Method 2 and refer the steps to open Power Options.)

2. Click Change settings that are currently unavailable.

3. Select High performance and click on Change plan settings.

4. Click on Change advanced power settings.

5. Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable.

6. Locate USB settings and expand it.

7. Expand USB selective suspend setting. Disable both On battery and Plugged in settings.

8. Click Apply button and restart your computer.

After using methods in this post, you must resolve the Device Descriptor Request Failed error for Windows 10.

Summary :

As the abbreviation of Universal Serial Bus, USB is an external bus standard, used for the specification of connection and communication between computer and external device. USB devices can be seen everywhere nowadays: USB flash drive, USB hard drive, USB memory stick, etc. Today, I’ll show you how to do when you find a USB device shows as unknown.

As you can easily find, the USB has become a standard and the most popular PC expansion interface of the twenty-first century. USB devices can be seen in all walks of life; even the game console, SD card, and mouse, keyboard & other hardware components of the computer can be connected through the USB interface.

Error: Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)

But sometimes, you may run into the Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) error. How does that happen? Can you fix unknown USB device yourself? How to recover data from the problematic USB drive?

You must care about these things when in face of unknown USB drive problem, right? Taking this into account, I decided to show you how to recover data from unknown USB device and the way to deal with the unknown USB device in Windows 10 properly.

Here is a real case of unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) code 43 in Windows 10:

I have been facing a problem with my USB devices for the past few weeks. Whenever I connect a USB device (mouse, iPhone or even a USB), I get the error Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43). As a result, I am unable to connect any USB device to my computer which is very frustrating. In addition to that, I have also discovered that my Bluetooth Devices also shows a similar message Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) Driver Error. I tried to connect devices (phone, a wireless headset) to my computer but that also failed.– reported by Usman26 on forums.lenovo.com

Recovery: Rescue Data from the Unknown USB Device

Whenever you meet the unknown USB device issue, you are advised to recover data from the unknown USB device at first. When the data recovery has been finished, you can try every possible means to fix the problem (this is for data security reasons).

USB Device Data Recovery Plan

Step one: if you envy the free USB data recovery, please get the following trial edition and install it on your computer properly.

Step two: connect the target USB device to your computer and launch the software you have just installed by double clicking on the icon.

Step three: shift to the Removable Disk Drive option from This PC (checked by default). Then, take a look at the right panel to see whether your USB device appears here.

• If it does appear, please select it and click on the Scan button to start searching for files saved in it.
• If you can’t find your USB device, please try to fix the problem & make it appear here after reading Fix USB Flash Drive Not Recognized & Recover Data – How To Do.

Step four: wait for the scan. Then, browse all the files and folders found & listed by the software to figure out whether they contain the lost data you need.

• If you have found the documents you want, please check them one by one.
• If not all your needed files are here, please wait patiently for the completion of the scan (to get the best recovery result).

Please note that:

• You can choose to Pause the scan when you have to leave for a while and don't want the scan to continue.
• You may as well click on the Stop button to cancel further scans completely when you have found all the files you need in the current scan result.

Step five: click on the Save button located in the lower right corner of the software interface. Then, choose a storage path for the selected files (which are waiting to be recovered from the USB device) and click on the OK button to reconfirm your choice (this step can’t be accomplished if you are using a trial edition to scan the USB drive).

To really recover the needed data from the software scan result, you should:

1. Get a license key.
2. Register your copy of software with that license.
3. Re-scan the USB device and check files to recover.

This is the end of data recovery from an unknown USB device. Actually, the method also works for the situations where you need to recover deleted files from USB drive or fix a broken USB stick.

As for how to recover data from the HDD which shows as unknown, you should read this post carefully:

On discovering your disk shows as unknown, uninitialized or unallocated, you must take actions at once to recover all valuable data from it.

Repair: Fix the Unknown USB Device Issue in Different Ways

As I said earlier, the USB port has been applied to a lot of commonly seen products, mobile phones, USB flash drives, printers, scanners, tablets, laptops, and desktops. You need to connect the USB device to a computer to deal with some data copying, managing and transferring work most of the time.

This is where the problem comes in – an error of Unknown USB Device is given by the Windows computer (and the computers running Linux or other systems). Well, what are you going to do when encountering the following error messages?

• Unknown USB device (device descriptor request failed) nothing plugged in
• Unknown USB device (port reset failed)
• Unknown USB device (the device failed enumeration)
• Unknown USB device (set address failed)
• Error code 43
• …

Please check whether the USB port is damaged or not when you see those error messages: try connecting it through other USB ports on the computer or try to connect it to a different PC. Then, shut down your computer, restart it, and plug the USB device into a good USB port to see whether the problem can be fixed.

If this fails, you should connect the target USB device properly to the computer and then resort to the following workarounds yourself (all steps are finished in a Windows 10 computer).

Workaround 1: Check & Repair Bad Sectors

If bad sectors appear on a USB storage device, the corresponding area can’t be read or written.

How to check and repair:

1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to enter its main interface.
2. Select the USB disk from the right pane and choose Surface Test from Disk menu (you can also select the USB partition and choose Surface Test from Partition menu when the USB device contains only one partition).
3. Click on the Start Now button in the pop-up Surface Test window and wait for the check process.
4. Take a glance at the result and decide what to do next (if there are only a few bad sectors, you may try to repair them; if too many bad sectors are found, you’ll need to discard this device and buy a new one, for the sake of data security).
5. Repair the bad sectors with special tools when necessary.

Workaround 2: Use Hardware and Device Troubleshooter

Troubleshooter is actually a universal troubleshooting tool built-in in the Windows systems. It works well in checking and repairing many common system problems.

How to use:

1. Click on the Start button from the bottom left corner of the screen.
2. Scroll down to the S column and select Settings.
3. Find Update & Security (Windows Update, recovery, backup) option and click on it.
4. Select Troubleshoot from the left pane.
5. Select Hardware and Devices under Find and fix other problems area.
6. Click on the Run the troubleshooter button appeared.
7. Wait for the problems detecting process and follow the on-screen instruction.
8. Click on Apply this fix if any problem is found.

This method will help you to solve the unknown USB device problem once it is caused by hardware issues. If the problem persists, please move on to the next solution.

Workaround 3: Uninstall/update the USB Driver

The problematic USB driver (the driver is outdated, corrupted, broken, or missing) is likely to be the cause of the USB device descriptor failure issue.

How to uninstall/update:

1. Open Device Manager the way you like (type msc in Run or right click on This PC & choose Manage & select Device Manager).
2. Find and expand Universal Serial Bus Controllers from the right pane.
3. Now, you can locate the malfunctioned USB drives easily (they are marked with a yellow triangle, with an exclamation point inside).
4. Right click on the USB drive and choose Uninstall or Update Driver Software.
5. Wait for Windows to execute your operations.
6. Restart the computer to see whether the problem has been fixed.

If the problem is still not solved after unknown USB device driver download, please keep reading.

Workaround 4: Change Power Options

You may also change your current power plan to try to fix the unknown device problem.

Here’s how to change:

1. Click on the search box on the taskbar (how to fix when taskbar is not working).
2. Type settings into the box.
3. Select Settings (Trusted Microsoft Store app) from the search result.
4. Select System (Display, notifications, power) option from the Settings window.
5. Shift to Power & sleep option from Display (which is selected by default).
6. Scroll down on the right side of the screen to find Related settings area.
7. Click on the Additional power settings option.
8. Click on Change plan settings after your current plan.
9. Click on Change advanced power settings in the Edit Plan Settings window.
10. Find USB settings and expand it.
11. Expand USB selective suspend setting.
12. Click on the Enabled button after Setting and choose Disabled instead.
13. Click on the OK/Apply button.
14. Reboot your PC to make the changes take effect.

If the problem is not solved, please turn to the next method.

Workaround 5: Disable Fast Startup

Indeed, the fast startup is a feature embedded with Windows system and related to hibernate and shutdown. It aims at speeding up the computer boost. Yet, some people complained about this: the fast startup generates an ultra-fast execution speed so that the USB device may not be detected by Windows 10 or other systems; thus, the USB device descriptor failure may appear.

Now, I’ll show you how to fix the error by disabling fast startup:

1. Open the Run dialog box by holding the Windows key and R key on the keyboard at the same time.
2. Type control/control panel into the text box after the word Open:.
3. Press Enter on the keyboard or click on the OK button in the Run dialog box to open Control Panel.
4. Please click on Hardware and Sound option and choose Power Options from the right side when the items are viewed Category (you can choose Power Options directly if all items are viewed by Large icons or Small icons).
5. Select Choose what the power button does from the left-hand pane.
6. Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable under Define power buttons and turn on password protection.
7. Uncheck the Turn on fast startup (recommended) option under Shutdown settings.
8. Click on the Save Changes button.
9. Restart your computer to see whether the problem has been solved.

You can use the above six ways to solve the unknown USB device problem most of the time.

Final Words

It really doesn’t matter whether you use a USB hard drive or a USB flash drive; in both cases, you’re likely to come across the Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) error. On this occasion, what really matters is how you respond to the problem.

My advice is recovering data from that unknown USB device first (after all, data is the most important thing). Then, you should follow the methods and steps (I’ve offered in the previous part) to try to repair the error as fast as you can.

Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) FAQ

Download Device Driver Windows 10

1. Press Win + R, type devmgmt.msc and click OK.
2. Go to find the unknown devices (usually has a special mark).
3. Right click on the device and choose Properties.
4. Shift to Details tab and find the Property selection.
5. Look at the plug-and-play Hardware ID information.
6. Locate the device Vendor ID & Product ID from Value list data.

1. Poor line or interface contact
2. Missing drive letter or drive letter conflict
3. Device driver is outdated/damaged/missing
4. Power save of USB root hub
5. Insufficient/unstable power supply
6. Hardware errors on device
7. Unsupported file system