USB Code 38 still causing me frustration.

[Spartan191]

Hi, my first post but not my first time of getting a hell of a lot of answers from here. My problem is this same old code 38 issue with USB;
"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)"
I get one use of the ports and then I have to do a Shutdown while holding shift, a normal shutdown is not enough now. I am running Windows 10 Home, 64bit, Build 17763, DX12. The laptop is an ASUS R701VM, [email protected], 16MB DDR3 667MHz Patriot Ram running in Dual Channel, With two 1Tb HDD-Pri is Hybrid SSHD and 17"HD monitor with Intel 4000/nVidiaGT630M.
I have tried several searches using broad and keyword but I only seem to get zero response returns. So, I am hoping that asking will provide some answers. When I generic Google search, all I get is update the USB driver, clear the cache, shut down and re-start, but no real answer to the actual problem which to my mind seems to be the inability for windows to flush the memory when you do remove the device from the computer. There has to be a better way to overcome this issue and Microsoft must be able to address it, surely?
Hoping somebody has better answers than those techbots that write tales for magazines and call them solutions.

Kind regards, Jeff

 

[Saltgrass]

One thing you might try is to open the Device Manager and set to View to show hidden devices. Go down to the USB section or where ever the devices might be listed and see if any greyed out instances occur. If they do, uninstall from there. If the box to uninstall all drivers is there, you might check that also.

You don't say what type of device it is, so the device may have entries in more than one section of Device Manager.

Shutting your system all the way down should clear out the memory just in case it was a driver being retained during restart events.

 

[Spartan191]

Thanks, the device is simply the four USB ports on the Laptop, all USB 3.0. There is an Alcor Micro USB 2.0 Card Reader. Since I selected to show hidden devices, under USB controllers there are more greyed out devices than there are dark devices visible.
I will test the connecting of portable HDD and USB sticks to see what happens and try to get before and after screenshots.

 

[Snuffy]

try this:

I used a program called USB Oblivion.

You can download it from here.

This utility designed to erase all traces of connected USB devices - flash-drives, disks and CD-ROMs from computer registry of Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (32/64-bit versions). The utility has a test mode of operation, i.e. without actually removing data from the registry, and, just in case, creates a .reg-file to undo any changes. There is also a fully automatic mode.

#2 solution is locate USB in reg. and clean all
#2a. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/tips-for-solving-problems-with-usb-devices


#3 is Free program by IOBits - Driver Booster that will clean all unplugged Devices (see pic) 11 devices (it is safe I use all the time)