New Dell Laptop not Recognizing Installation USB Sticks 2012

[Anonymous]

I have a brand new Dell laptop.

I could not get the thing to recognize the new USB install sticks.

I have tried 4 of them.

They all work on other machines, including other laptops of all varieties.

The brand new Dell recognizes my old USB mice, thumb drives, and keyboards, but not these Autodesk Install drives.

The blinky lights don't even come on.

What could the problem be?

[TravisNave]

Are they blue USB3 ports?  Maybe you have a USB2 port or you can configure your ports in the BIOS?  Perhaps they are not powered and are passive?  There may be a lot of reasons. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I was just going to post this as solved.

I phoned Dell and they pointed me at a port that I didn't recognize as a USB port, it was a combo SATA and USB and the result is I am currently installing using this port.

I am a little surprised that you say "there could be a lot of reasons". I've been using thumb drives for years, same with USB devices. Dozens of drives, dozens of devices, dozens of ports on maybe a dozen machines. I've never once had any problem whatsoever.

Why on earth in 2011 would I make the assumption that a simple, common, or obvious problem like this would exist? So it's 2011 and I've found that USB drives of the newest variety and USB ports of the newest variety aren't being designed to play well with others? This is astounding. So is it Autodesk's fault, Dell's fault, or Toshiba's fault? Because this is definitely unacceptable in this day and age of connectivity across platforms and devices.

The three ports that didn't work on my Dell are USB3. The one that works is a USB/SATA.