Is anyone able to help? I have a small technical question about my new kindle.

[NudgeNudgeWinkWink]

It's charging through the USB port on my laptop (for the first time). However the computer says it's detected new hardware (fair enough) but is insisting on trying to find, I think, software on the kindle to download to the computer. However it's getting stuck searching with a torch icon going round and round and never getting anywhere even when I leave it along time. IS there even meant to be anything for it to find? If I just press cancel than it closes that window then restarts the wizard.

Now I'd probably be happy to just ignore the message, after all it's only charging for a couple of hours but I don't seem to be able to "safely remove hardware" . The usual icon isn't there and the one the little bubble saying "new hardware - kindle" is adifferent one. So I guess I can't safely remove without dealing with the first issue.

At present there's nothing on the kindle but obviously I want to start as I mean to go on and don't want to risk buggering up the kindle and it's contents in the future.

What do I do?

Hmm, well I left it long enough and eventually the laptop whirred loudly and the wizard said software "download completed press finish" or equivilent so I said thinking "yippee".

Sadly I cheered too soon. Within seconds the icon at the bottom of my screen produced a bubble which said " a problem occurred during installation, your new hardware may not work properly" and the internet (which I was on at the time) crashed simultaneously. However my laptop is old and ailing an doften crashes to TBH might have been a coincidence!

Oh, and now there's no icon at the bottom referring to the kindle at all, which all the time is sitting serenely by....

Oh buggery bollocks - the kindle says "USB drive mode. If you want to use your kindle please eject it from your computer, currently your kindle is not charging". But the charging light is still orange not green.

Oh fucking hell, why is nothing easy? Right, got to go to school, going to unplug it and see what happens.

Sorry about the stream of consiousness, but would really appreciate anyone who knows about this kind of stuff giving some advice. Mainly, if I bugger about unplugging it from the USB port in the future will I lose books stored on it?

Sorry I cannot be more helpful about the icons etc, but if I need to remove something safely without buggering it up I just shut down the computer, and then unplug it.

I assume in the shutting down process, the computer closes it's USBs safely...

When you're charging your kindle through your computer, you need to 'eject' it from the computer for some reason.

Go to 'my computer' on your laptop and your kindle should be listed.

Right click on it and scroll down to 'eject'. Once you do that you can leave it plugged in to the laptop and it will charge.

Not sure about your other questions though, sorry!

Amazon helpline have always been really helpful

Thank you all.

Well when I went to just yank out the lead a "safely remove" icon had appeared!

And when I plugged it in again it started charging with no issues and still had a "safely remove" icon. So without quite knowing how I did it (what I did!?!) it all seems to be alright.

I think.

Maybe.

For the moment at least.

I might be back.