My mega 2560 board stopped working on the USB port. I thought it was a problem with my computer or drivers, until I tried it on another computer and it also was not recognized.
My question is, do I trash the board, or is there an alternate way to program it, that is not too unwieldy?
In this position you have two options. These are:
You can program the board by using a usb-to-serial breakout board, this would basically require only four or five wires to work.
You can also consider getting a ISP device. These use six wires, are a bit more advanced but has the added advantage of foregoing the bootloader. By doing so you could get a bit more space to work with for your sketches.