Reconnect USB Devices without Unplugging and Re-plugging

USB devices can be disconnected by right-clicking the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the task bar and following direction in the resulting dialogue boxes. Is there a way to reconnect the device without unplugging and replugging it?

Today I found great difficulty to work with my USB device. My CPU is away from my monitor as I’m using small table where I could not accommodate both monitor and CPU on the table. I have plugged in a USB device and after using it I have disconnected by right-clicking the ‘Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the taskbar.

Then I found that I have missed out one file which needs to be copied from USB device. At this point I had no option to reconnect the USB device except unplugging and Re-plugging. It will be very much useful if i could able to reconnect the USB device without Re-plugging.

I tried to find out some way to reconnect the disconnected USB device without unplugging and Re-plugging. Voila… I got a solution for this problem.

As I’m using Win XP machine, I have opened the Device Manager by typing “devmgmt.msc” command line command in Start --> Run window.



This will open the Device Manager. Select View from the menu bar and select “Devices by Connection”



Find the USB Device that has a yellow color exclamation mark. Right click on USB Device and select Disable and again select Enable.





The USB Device has reconnected and could able to open it from My Computer.

I believe that the same approach will work for vista and other operating systems even though I haven’t tried… try it now. Keep in mind that Win XP requires SP3 for connecting the USB device without Re-Plugging. If you don't have SP3 Enable option will ask for system restart.