When ADB won’t detect your Android phone…
The official instructions for using your Android phone for development are here:
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html
So you plugged your Android phone into your Windows machine having forgotten to switch on USB debugging…
Menu > Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging
Then Windows detected your device as a USB-Mass storage device and won’t change the settings, regardless of how many times you uninstalled the device. Thread on it here.
This solution worked for me and didn’t require editing the registry settings (I don’t know if the reboot is unnecessary).
(1) Plugin phone
(2) Uninstall any drivers that mention “HTC Android Mobile USB Device”
(3) Unplug phone and restart
(4) Install and run USBDeview
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html
(5) Using USBDeview find the Android device (for some reason Windows hides uninstalled drivers instead of deleting them), right click on it and uninstall.
(6) Follow the official instructions to the letter this time.
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html
Happy developing.

June 23rd, 2009 at 8:14 am
Thank you for your info. It worked like a charm.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
You are number one!!!!
July 10th, 2009 at 12:50 am
At last a really working solution. Thank you very much!
July 27th, 2009 at 6:41 am
Thank You!
August 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 am
I had the same problem, but was able to fix it by going in to the Device Manager (MyComputer -> Properties -> Hardware), right clicking on the HTC device and selecting “Properties,” and reinstalling the driver from there.
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Thank you for this solution! This worked great.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Thanks a bunch, worked on the MyTouch.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
it worked, thx
August 12th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Didn’t worked, still have the problem, that I get after installing the drivers the failure “Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware”. Yes I activated USB Debugging Mode -.-
August 19th, 2009 at 10:46 am
You saved me hours of head scratching, thanks !
August 21st, 2009 at 2:34 am
Also, try a different USB cable! I struggled for quite a while, getting nowhere until I tried a different cable. Got connected immediately after that!
September 14th, 2009 at 12:17 am
Omg !! I love you man. This worked like a charm ! I spent like 2 hours on this issue.
Cheers to you !
September 17th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
You’re the man, worked great.
October 9th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Awesome - big thanks - worked purrfect
January 12th, 2010 at 1:23 am
Took forever to find this page, but the solution worked like a charm. Thanks for posting it!
January 30th, 2010 at 6:36 am
omfg didn’t work perfect but did work. You are the person.