USB to PC Connection Issues / Kies Issues

Hi all -
Has anyone had this problem: After pluging in the USB cable, the Captivate screen shows the USB icon and Initializing...but then the screen quickly flashes back to the phone Locked screen, then back to the USB screen constantly.  On the PC, the message pops up that the driver is installing and/or MTP drivers installed correctly.  This continues continuously.

I've restarted the PC, restarted the phone and the flashing problem seems to temporarily stop but then the phone never connects to Kies, although Kies does start and the phone screen says "Connected".  Then I unplug the phone and plug in again and the cycle continues.

The weird thing, this stuff was all working last week after I initially got the phone. The only thing I did was update Kies from an update prompt.  After the issues started, I uninstalled and reinstalled again (pre-update) and the issue did not go away.  I'm using Windows Vista SP2 and have 4GB RAM. Kies v1.5.5.50071_32.

Do you think I could have a faulty phone or something fried it when connecting it to the PC?  The phone is only 2 weeks old!

Any help will be appreciated!  Thanks!







***Mk edit:  Changed Topic Subject

Thanks Bighitter.  That seemed to work, I can manually xfer files over now, although the drives display as generic drives on the PC.

The weird thing though is that when I checked under the phone's storage, my external card @ 4GB and the internal card (which should be 16GB right?) displayed as "unavailable".  I'm beginning to wonder if something did fry on the phone although the storage shows up on the PC.  Anyone else had this issue too?

The other thing I just noticed and checked is that under "Files" it says "No external card inserted"  which explains why the photo Gallery screen is blank. Something is amiss here.

You're right!  Thanks Bighitter!

Mommehk:  I had to uninstall Kies first, then the mass storage worked okay.  When I uninstalled Kies, I think it left the drivers alone because I didn't have to install them again to have mass storage work.   I was able to successfully transfer video files over and it worked fine.  For me, Kies only worked the first week, then it died. Good luck.

Try going into Settings->SD card and phone storage and do a manual "unmount". Play around with mounting and unmounting while the phone is plugged in vs. unplugged to see how the phone reacts and how Windows creates the drive letters, to get a better understanding.

I use my home laptop and my work computer for connecting my phone.  At home I have Windows 7 and work I have XP Pro (sorry no Vista).

Forget dowloading the zipped file from the Samsung website. I tried a whole bunch of things but I could not connect my Samsung Captivate to my Vista with the Kies setting on my Captivate. Finally found a solution:

Download the *.exe file from the following link to your laptop

http://www.samsung.com/ae/consumer/mobile-phones/mobile-phones/infotainment/GT-I9000HKDXSG/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=support

Click on the Software part and download the *.exe file
Once downloaded, install the file. This might take 30 minutes or more if you install the full version. It will install the Samsung Kies on your computer

Once installed, open the installed program (Kies) and connect Captivate to the laptop. But first please remember to set the USB connection settings in your Captivate to Samsung Kies.

Once connected, Kies will recognize your device and it will start working

Hi vjofvizag, I had the exact same problem as posted in the initial question in the thread. After installing the *.zip file in my laptop (link provided in ATT website which leads to Samsung's, I believe), the laptop would not recognize the device.It kept installing the driver all the time, seemed it was in a loop. It would, but only in the 'Mass Storage' mode; which of course is of little use if you cannot sync it with your outlook or music. I installed, re-installed the software; rebooted the computer many times but nothing worked. I kept googling the issue until I found the link to the Samsung Kies application software itself. Once I installed the application in my laptop, the application recognized the device AND I was able to sync my Captivate with Samsung Kies. After a cumulative 12 hours of trying I did it, got excited and posted it in this forum. Did you try my solution by the way? ;-) If mine does not work, I am sure yours will work.

Hey warne that exe file, Do you know if it would be ok to work with a 32 bit windows vista laptop?