If your Android device is recognized but not functioning after being connected to a computer, you may check the device’s driver status in Windows Device Manager. In the “Portable Devices” section, an MTP USB device with a warning symbol could be displayed. Sometimes it may appear under “Other Devices” as “Unknown Device.” If you encounter the error message “A service installation section in this INF is invalid,” it means that driver updates through Windows Update might not be successful. To address this issue, refer to the steps mentioned in this post to determine how to proceed.
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What exactly does this A Service Installation Section in this INF is Invalid error mean?
The PC cannot locate the device when you want to connect your Android phone to the computer using the MTP USB protocol. You go to the Device Manager because it could be a driver problem.
However, when you seek the device, you discover that it is marked as an MTP device with a warning indication in yellow next to it. You launch the update driver application because you believe that the prompt is another indicator showing that the problem lies with the drivers of your smartphone.
When you attempt a step to update the driver using the Device Manager’s “update driver” option, you may receive the single line error message stating, “A service installation section in this INF is invalid.” This message indicates an issue with a specific section of the INF file associated with the driver installation.
If this is the scenario, then it suggests that the problem is not restricted to smartphone drivers; rather, it affects the internal USB driver files necessary for an MTP device to establish a connection with a PC.
Methods to solve this issue.
To address the problem, you can try updating the driver manually by following these steps:
Step.1 Press the Win Key + X on your keyboard and select “Device Manager” from the options. Alternatively, you may access Device Manager through the Control Panel.
Step.2 Locate the yellow exclamation mark within the “Portable devices” category and right-click on it. Now select “Update Driver Software” from the available options. In case you are unable to find the “Portable devices” category, make sure to check under the “Other devices” category as an alternative.
Step.3 Next opt for the “Browse my computer for driver software” from two different choice.
Step.4 Next, choose the option “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.”
If your Android device is listed under the “Portable devices” category, you will come across the option of “MTP USB Device.” Select this option and click on “Next.” Windows will then proceed to install the suitable MTP device driver for your phone. Once the installation gets finished, you can close the window and switch off your phone. After reconnecting the device, you should be able to access and open media files on your PC without encountering any issues.
That concludes the process. With the successful installation of the MTP device driver, you can now utilize your phone as an external storage device for your computer. If you are using a Windows Phone instead of an Android phone, simply follow the same steps, but select a Windows phone in the final step.
Manual installation of missing driver files
The issue may arise if the built-in USB driver files mdmcpq.inf and usbser.sys are absent or damaged. To rectify the problem, you can attempt to install these two driver files by following these steps:
Step.1 Locate the file mdmcpq.Inf in C:WindowsINF on the system that doesn’t have the issue (the computer may run any version of Windows). Copy of this file, and then save it on an external disk to your computer.
Step.2 To save a copy of the usbser.sys file on the affected computer, navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers and copy the file to an external drive for backup.
Step.3 To fix the issue with missing or corrupted mdmcpq.inf and usbser.sys files, connect the external drive containing the saved mdmcpq.inf and usbser.sys files to the affected computer and copy them to the C:\Windows\INF and C:\Windows\System32\drivers directories, respectively.
Step.4 After performing the necessary steps, reconnect your Android device and verify if the problem has been resolved related to the USB driver.
By performing these actions, you should be able to resolve the issue with your Android device not being recognized by your PC.
Conclusion
The “A service installation section in this INF is invalid” problem may be resolved in one of two ways mentioned above.
