My nexus 4 shows as a USB device not recognised, how can i fix this?

[T Sams17]

I got my nexus 4 last year and it has run perfectly fine since i got it, it has given me no problems apart from randomly restarting itself. However recently i got a new HP Windows 8.1 laptop so naturally i upload all my cds onto it and i plus my nexus in and it appears like it normally would for about a minute and i thought i had managed to transfer new songs over but then it disappears. I wondered what i had done and left it for the night thinking that it was nothing.
I'm running Windows 8.1 on my main machine, I connected the Nexus to my laptop, the laptop does that sound it makes when a USB device is connected, but it says "USB device not recognised, that the last usb connected malfunctioned" but i have no idea how to fix this.
My family have android devices and all of them function normally when plugged into my laptop.
When i search device manager i cannot see the device at all, but in the usb section there is an unknown USB device.

Things I've tried:
using a different USB port
using a different USB cable
uninstall, reboot and reinstall driver
Phone is running the latest android Lollipop
switched between debugging mode on and off and MTP device is on, didn't work with any of this or PTP mode

 

[Rukbat]

Read Windows 8.1 - Install unsigned drivers. You'll need the Google USB Driver.

 

[Bugstomper2000]

Make sure you have your phone set up as a media device, and USB Debugging isn't turned on. In my personal experience, Windows can be picky with USB Debugging turned on.

Posted via the Android Central App on my Nexus 4

 

[T Sams17]

Make sure you have your phone set up as a media device, and USB Debugging isn't turned on. In my personal experience, Windows can be picky with USB Debugging turned on.

Posted via the Android Central App on my Nexus 4

i tried this and nothing happened, i had the same result

 

[T Sams17]

i already installed the driver and tried the method stated by windows page but no luck, still the same results

 

[Bugstomper2000]

At this point, I would recommend mounting your phone manually using ADB(Android Debug Bridge). First you will need to install ADB (you can go ahead and install Fastboot too, which manages firmware from the bootloader). I use Linux for this sort of thing, so use this page to do that. Then, you will need to put your N4 in USB debugging mode, hint debug bridge. After this, go ahead and open up cmd, and enter the following commands.

adb devices
mount /system
mount /data
mount /sdcard

Again, I normally use Linux for this sort of thing. This should now show up under your computer. If this doesn't work, you should do some research on how to mount a device with adb on Windows, and please share what works.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Plug phone into computer.

Open device manager.

Look for a USB device with a yellow triangle icon and this description: "Device Descriptor Request Failed"

Right click that listing and delete the device.

Remove USB cable.

Reboot computer.

Plug back in and try it again.

 

[T Sams17]

Plug phone into computer.

Open device manager.

Look for a USB device with a yellow triangle icon and this description: "Device Descriptor Request Failed"

Right click that listing and delete the device.

Remove USB cable.

Reboot computer.

Plug back in and try it again.

no luck, i've been trying at this for weeks