Clara HD Clara HD won't appear on my computer

[PD in Waterloo]

Hi all... I just found a long-lost (six months or so) Clara HD, and after re-charging, I connected it to my computer with through the USB port. The Clara showed the expected "Connect" button, and when I tapped it, it quickly showed the "connected and charging" screen. But the reader is not popping open a device window, nor showing up in the File Manager on my Win 11 computer.

The same computer recognizes my new Clara HD, which pops open a device window immediately upon connection, and shows up in the File Manager window.

I'm comfortable with the new BW, but I'd like to fix this issue because I'd like to upload my annotations, and my wife wouldn't mind using the older HD for when she can't get a book from the library in time for book club.

Anyone have ideas on what could be going awry with the connection?

Thanks!

[DNSB]

Since the Clara BW uses a USB-C connection, it's pretty much a red herring for connections to your Clara HD. Have you tried different micro-B USB cables for the Clara HD? My ereader collection is fussy over cables with some working with one cable and others not wanting to work with that cable. Another option is that the connection failed once and is now flagged as a bad device. Easiest way to look at that is to use NirSoft's USBDeview.

[PD in Waterloo]

Well, using the USB-C connections let me confirm that the ports on the computer were working and not the issue, which is of some troubleshooting value, so maybe a pink herring! I'll try a couple more cables. And I'll look up NirSoft's USBDeview. Thanks!

[koboy]

Originally Posted by PD in Waterloo

Well, using the USB-C connections let me confirm that the ports on the computer were working and not the issue, which is of some troubleshooting value, so maybe a pink herring! I'll try a couple more cables. And I'll look up NirSoft's USBDeview. Thanks!

if you have the cable that came with the Clara HD try that.

best wishes koboy

[PD in Waterloo]

Well, I got it to work. DNSB was right about fussy cables. I tried almost a dozen and all of a sudden one of them worked. It was a shaky connection—even touching the device caused it to disconnect—but it did work, and I did manage to do what I needed to do with the files aboard the device. I kept that cable and marked it as usable for the reader!

In the course of the exercise, I also realized that some of the cables I was trying were "power only," although apparently there's no indication on the cable itself that such is the case, which to me seems like a pretty gigantic user-experience issue for the USB consortium, along with maybe standardizing the colour-coding of the various transfer speeds.

Thanks also to Koboy for the idea about the original cable but I don't have it any more.

[Quoth]

And with USB-C a cable might be USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 and may or may not work with a USB-C display that uses USB Alt-DP mode.

It's a mess. All my USB-A to USB-B cables work

[meeera]

Originally Posted by PD in Waterloo

Well, I got it to work. DNSB was right about fussy cables. I tried almost a dozen and all of a sudden one of them worked. It was a shaky connection—even touching the device caused it to disconnect—but it did work, and I did manage to do what I needed to do with the files aboard the device..

That makes me wonder if also the microUSB port in your kobo is coming unseated. Is it wobbly at all?