My PC doesn't recognise my phone any more. Please help!

May 21, 2012 4:15 AM

I have a Samsung Nexus S smartphone. Since upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich, my PC (running Windows 7) no longer recognises the phone.

I connect the phone to the PC occasionally to back up my photos and have never had any problems. However, since the upgrade I can't get it to work. I've reinstalled the drivers and restarted both devices ad nauseum, but other than that I really don't know what to do. Tips and ideas appreciated.

For what it's worth, you can see the error message here. I get this message about half the time I connect the phone. The rest of the time, the phone just charges but nothing else.

posted by rubbish bin night to computers & internet (5 answers total)

Have you tried a) reinstalling drivers; b) unlocking?

See these articles for more details:
http://theunlockr.com/2009/10/06/how-to-set-up-adb-usb-drivers-for-android-devices/
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/galaxy-nexus-development/186129-how-unlock-bootloader-root-galaxy-nexus.html
posted by TheRaven at 6:13 AM on May 21, 2012

I had the same issue on my Galaxy S. I looked deeper and found I had about 8 different drivers installed and now you can simply let the pc "automatically get the drivers", which you couldn't before.

You need to follow these instructions, or these and kill ALL the old drivers. ANYTHING you had installed for the phone, ever in all of ever.

Supposedly if you do this, restart, plug in and tell the pc to "automatically check" for the driver, it will find it. That didn't work for me, but I don't have a nexus.

What DID work for me was installing the SDK, and then the "usb drivers" package as listed here. (Galaxy S roms use the Nexus S AOSP package and thus the same drivers.)

YMMV, but this worked for me...although oddly on my laptop and other computer, it continued working fine. I assume it's because I had so many versions of the driver after upgrading from Eclair to Froyo to ICS.
posted by TomMelee at 6:34 AM on May 21, 2012

Have you tried toggling the USB mode of your phone? I've got the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and at times my PC won't properly recognize my phone either, leaving me unable to upload music. When that happens, I simply drag down the notifications bar, tap on to the "Connected as a media device" text (it may also read "Connected as a camera"), and toggle from MTP to PTP and then back again. To date, this has been 100% successful at resolving my issue.
posted by EKStickland at 7:15 AM on May 21, 2012

If you have Wifi do yourself a favor and grab the free AirDroid app. MTP on my Nexus running ICS is flakey at best and unusable at worst.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2012

Thanks everyone! I tried everything suggested (except unlocking the phone) and didn't get anywhere. AirDroid has done the trick though. I really appreciate all the tips and advice.
posted by rubbish bin night at 10:00 AM on May 21, 2012