I don't know why it didn't work the first time, but F1 takes you into the BIOS on the ThinkPad where I told it not to boot from USB devices. Now the external hard drives can share the USB hub with my mouse and keyboard. For some reason, the mouse only appears if plugged directly into the PC.
Beginning to mistrust the 10-port USB hub. Some of the product reviews on Amazon report similar problems..
Is that hub powered? I wonder, if it's not, if it might be unable to provide enough power for the mouse to work.
ReplyDeleteyes. hub-powered.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of hubs greater than 7, and 4 is pretty common. There may be addressing issues.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of 10-port hubs but they're not common. Perhaps a pair of 7s would work better.
ReplyDeleteUSB is supposed to address 127 or 128 or so devices. I remember hearing anecdotes back in the Win95 days of Microsoft people trying to test that by plugging large amounts of hubs into each other.
If the hub's powered, it's less likely you're running into devices not getting enough power but depending on the size of the power supply it's probably still possible.