We have an Inspiron 4150 that we use mostly for the kids homework, and emails. We recently purchased a kodak easyshare m833 digital camera we went to insert the disk that came with the camera and the disk made some noise when we inserted it and then nothing, no set up wizard, looked for the software nothing. Also my son who has some computer knowledge said he couldn't even find the c drive. I downloaded the software from kodak's web site but still nothing. Then we plugged in the camera into the usb port to charge the camera, nothing. We usually use this port with our printer and it works for printing, but it will not work to charge the camera. We also tried to get pictures out of the camera using the software we downloaded with no success. The camera I don't think was ever recognized by the computer, nothing stating new hardware or any kind of communication from the computer. We use windows xp to run our laptop, we are using a seperate monitor because the screen with the laptop went black sometime ago. Is there anything we can do to get the usb, and c drive working again? Do I have to get a new machine or can this machine be fixed?

if you were able to go on the net and download things, the c: is obviously there. as far as the usb goes, you can try and remove and re-install the usb root controller via dev. manager.

how do i do that?

start--->control panel--->system---->hardware tab
device manager button
click the plus by usb controllers, and remove them all
reboot