Epic 4G driver fix (for Windows 7 64-bit)

Use a good USB cable. Apparently, it really *is* that simple!

The original cable, shipped with the phone, works great for charging but does NOT work for data transfer — at least on every computer running Windows 7 that I’ve tried. It causes the phone to not be recognized when plugged in to the computer as a USB device. I have had good luck with the following cables — and there are probably others out there that work well, too.

Here, step by step, is how I got the driver to recognize the phone. I have tried this on my work laptop (a Dell Latitude D630), my home desktop (a homebuilt Core i7 running a Gigabyte X58 chipset motherboard), and several other PCs.

• Find a good USB cable. Here are the results from various cables that I’ve tried:
  • Stock USB cable shipped with the phone: NO GOOD
  • (nice) Belkin USB extension cable / adapter kit: NO GOOD
  • Belkin USB-to-micro adapter, plugged directly in: UNRELIABLE
  • Radio Shack micro USB cable:EXPENSIVE BUT RELIABLE!
    (I disagree with the reviews on the Radio Shack site; this cable looks to be very solid and reliable, and works well with the Epic — but is way more expensive than it needs to be. For $25, it had better work well!)
• Turn the phone on, and unlock it if needed, so it is at the home screen.
• Plug the phone in to the USB cable. This should bring up a dialog box.
• Choose “Mass Storage” when prompted
• Click on the “Connect” button
• Click “OK”. (Google, WHY is Froyo so much more of a pain to connect? Do we really need to click through three confirmations for this??)
• Wait for Windows to detect the phone and load the mass-storage driver. The phone should appear as removable storage under “Computer.”
• Remember to unmount the phone (using the taskbar icon) when done.

If these steps don’t work, here are some things to try:

• Try another USB cable. For some reason, Windows 7 is very picky about USB cabling when connecting to an Android device like the Epic 4G. This is what finally solved the issue for me — even though I was already using the OEM cable supplied in the box with the phone.
• Download the mass-storage drivers for the phone from Samsung’s site here. (Click on software, then on the file folder icon at the right.) Unpack it, unplug your phone from the PC, and run the installer.
• Go into Device Manager and remove the USB driver and try the above again.

Good luck. Please feel free to post any questions, comments, or suggestions here.