USB Device: This device cannot start. (Code 10) after installing Samsung SSD

I ran out of space last week trying to build WebRTC. To alleviate the issue I installed a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. Unfortunately it caused me more problems than I was expecting. After installing the drive and reinstalling windows I found that USB mass storage devices would not work any more. In Device Manager all I saw was this message:

This device cannot start. (Code 10)

Not the most descriptive or useful error message, that's for sure! Fortunately I was able to find a resolution to the problem.

The Story

My Dell M4700 would boot Windows 7 and recognize HID devices so it was pretty puzzling that it wouldn't load an external USB 3 hard drive. After googling a bit I found a suggestion somewhere that suggested reinstalling the 'driver' would solve the problem.

Well, after uninstalling the Intel USB eXtensible Host Controller I was forced to reboot upon which I got stuck in a Blue Screen of Death loop complaining about classpnp.sys. A system recovery to a previous state allowed me to reboot windows and resume some semblance of normal computational activity.

One other page suggested going into device manager and uninstalling all USB related devices. This ended up being the suggestion that would help me root-cause the problem and find a resolution. While uninstalling the USB devices in Device Manager, a pop-up from Samsung Magician appeared on the screen indicating that an error had occurred. Hmm...

I loaded the Samsung Magician software and after playing around decided to disable the Rapid Mode'. Once the system rebooted, I was back in business with no USB device errors.

The Resolution

So, the resolution for this issue in my case was to:

• Open Samsung Magician software
• Disable Rapid Mode
• Reboot my laptop
  
  After reboot, everything loaded fine and without errors.