Hi guys. I'm hoping someone can help with this one as I'm going nowhere fast !

I have a Toshiba Satellite PRO laptop with Vista home premium on it and it's been a great machine for years.
However...for reasons unknown, a week ago my Sony 8GB Microvault flash drive isn't being enabled when plugged in.
I also have a WD 1.5TB usb drive which suffered the same fate.
Now both drives are 100% ok. ie no hardware or corruption.

I'll just deal with the Sony as the solution should fix both cases...

I plug the Sony 8GB in and the activity LED doesn't flash as it normally does.
Checking with Device manager I see the drive flagged as Code 22 - Disabled by Windows and it can't be enabled.
I also have a Sony 4GB Microvault flash and that CAN be plugged in and is detected and works fine and they both use the same Windows default drivers.
I checked for updated drivers and there weren't any.
I ran SFC and no problems were found but then non-essential items wouldn't be reported anyway.
I tried the 8Gb in the other 3 USB ports and no joy either.
The ports are 500mA and the Sony 8GB rated at 200mA btw so no issues with power there either.
I canned all old USB drivers (via Nirsoft's USBDeview utility) which cleaned out the dross but didn't fix the problem.
I copied all data off the Sony 8B and did a full (not quick) NTFS reformat. Didn't make any difference.
Now, here's the funny bit.
If I uninstall the driver via device manager then scan for changes, the Sony 8Gb gets detected and runs fine ! Ditto WD drive. Clearly the Windows drivers are fine.
But...the setting doesn't hold across a reboot.
The Sony 8G and WD 1.5TB both work fine on other pc's AND are recognised and work fine on the laptop in a recovery disk environment (Kaspersky 10).
BIOS setting are limited but nothing is wrong there.
I tried the power off/remove the battery solution to no effect too.

I scanned the pc with Malwarebytes, Zonealarm and Kaspersky 10 preboot and no nasties either.
So, I'm looking at a restore Windows from recent image or a repair Windows from DVD job neither of which I want to do unless I have to.



So any ideas or solutions very welcome !

*** SOLVED now - the problem was due to Easeus Todo Workstation 4.5 Windows driver - obviously somewhat flaky.. Uninstalled and all was fine.
Have since gone to Macrium Reflect Pro too, away from crappy Chinese software ;-)