Despite the fact that Windows is by far the most popular operating system, it is, unfortunately, imperfect. The situation is aggravated by a huge army of attackers who create and spread viruses and other malicious programs. All this causes various difficulties, and the user needs to master the basic principles of the system in order to be able to cope with various situations.
Windows can report that an unknown device is connected to the computer in three main cases:
1) just installed Windows;
2) a malfunction occurred;
3) installed a new hardware.
In the first case, Windows displays a message that an unknown device is connected, because the drivers for the main devices (sound, video, etc.) are not installed. It should be noted that with the advent of Windows 7, this problem was partially resolved. However, it’s worth keeping the disks with the main drivers for the motherboard, video card, chipset, etc. handy.
In the second case, the message “unknown device” appears due to the fact that Windows stopped detecting some devices due to a system failure. In this case, the system files of the operating system are substantially at risk. The cause of the failure may be a virus attack, long operation of Windows without reinstalling, a sharp drop in electricity, etc. There are three ways to solve this problem:
1) make a "rollback" of the system to the last control point;
2) reinstall the drivers on the “crashed” devices;
3) restore Windows system files (you need an operating system distribution kit).
The installation of new equipment, as a rule, assumes that a driver disk will be issued along with it. If for some reason it is not there, then you should worry about installing drivers.
Receiving a system notification that an unknown device is connected occurs quite often. Information about any of the devices connected to the computer can be obtained from the device manager. It is located in the "Hardware" tab, which can be found by calling the "System Properties" menu.
Sometimes it is not recognized, for example, a USB flash drive connected to a computer. An “unknown device” in this case is the removable media itself, and there can be several reasons for this. Usually, if an unknown USB device is detected, you should reconnect or try a different port, since this notification is in most cases the result of an unstable connection. If the USB port is used very often, then you can preliminarily squeeze the cable connected to the computer or the part of the USB flash drive that is inserted into the port to provide better contact.
However, in some situations, the reason that the computer cannot detect a previously working USB device is an incorrect driver setting. To correct the situation, the user can “roll back” the system or reinstall the USB driver. It is very rare that a physical malfunction causes the system to determine the device as unknown. Therefore, do not be scared if a new flash drive does not want to work, the main thing is to find and eliminate the cause.