Older machines that have been upgraded that are having Win8 issues where hardware seems to work and then doesn't ... then does, is likely a hardware failure at initializing (enumerating a port) in the plug & play environment. If the PC is a desktop, try moving to another port on a different internal HUB. If you only have one internal HUB, buy a cheap external hub (or borrow one first) and give that a try.
I have two notebooks, both designed for Win7 and one works perfectly on Win8 (64-bit) and one is iffy (win-32). From what I can determine, the win-32 bit drivers are significantly older and newer drivers cannot be obtained.
- Ray