# Computer - USB receiver?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-usb-receiver/183339>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 21, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-usb-receiver/183339 "2003-06-21T02:17:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-usb-receiver/183339/1 "2003-06-21T02:17:33Z")

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I got a new hard drive and that’s all going good. I brought it to a shop, I didn’t do it myself. THe computer shop guy reinstalled all the stuff from the recovery discs (Sony Vaio doesn’t come with a Windows XP disc, just recovery discs) and it all is working ok - except when I booted up it looks for software to install the USB receiver. It looks for it on the hard drive, but can’t find it. Anyone know where and what it is? I need my trackball to work and that needs USB to run.

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-usb-receiver/183339/2 "2003-06-21T04:09:06Z")

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Is your trackball wireless with a USB connected transmitter-receiver setup? If so you may need the trackball XP drivers from the manufs website.

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**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-usb-receiver/183339/3 "2003-06-21T14:30:31Z")

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First right-click on **My Computer** , hit **Manage** and highlight **Device Manager** in the left pane. See exactly which devices have yellow exclamation points on them in the right pane.

Poke through the Vaio recovery CDs and see if you can find a directory with a name like **Drivers\USB**. If you can’t locate the drivers there, try to download them from Sony’s [website](http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/support/).

Once you’ve located the drivers, right-click the problem device in Device Manager, hit **Reinstall Driver** , and point to the location of the files.

Alternatively you can try running the CD recovery program and see if it allows you to just reinstall the drivers, not the entire operating system. Some have this feature, but I’m not sure about Sony’s.

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**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-usb-receiver/183339/4 "2003-06-21T19:09:48Z")

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Thanks, the problem is solved. THe reason my trackball wasn’t working was because of a mistake I’ve made before - forgot to plug in the USB cable from the monitor to the computer :smack:

The mysterious “USB receiver” thing was still going on, I found the driver recovery disc and it installed the driver for my ATI remote (which I never use anyway, but it was plugged in). **Number’s** suggestion solved it. Thanks!

I am having monitor problems now, but I’ll save that for another post when I have more time.