Windows 7 Can I take a "lazy route" for this?

[The VCR King]

So my Windows install is borked enough that it cannot find any drivers for any new USB devices. New flash drive, SD card reader, headset dongle, dashcam dock, TI-89 plus, plug it in, "Driver not found". My older devices like my keyboard and mouse, older flash drives etc all work fine. Windows Update IS on, everything that should be turned on is, there's no real reason for my inability to use new USB devices.

I mentioned this awhile ago and was told to just reinstall windows, but between school and work, and the programs my family and I use, it'll realistically take 3 days plus to get this PC back to normal from a "clean slate" for us and I can't really do that.

Would it be worth a try running something like the Startup Repair and seeing if it somehow works to solve this?

 

[beers]

You could buy another drive and slowly migrate everything to the new one when people aren't using it.

That's my only family- based rigged idea other than a new pc to which you can clean up later or sell.

 

[The VCR King]

You could buy another drive and slowly migrate everything to the new one when people aren't using it.

That's my only family rig idea other than a new pc to which you can clean up later or sell.

I'll probably just do that, and on one of my days off school and work I'll reinstall windows. I'll probably just replace the whole hard drive and start fresh.

 

[OmniDyne]

Are you still using Windows 7?