ViviCam 55 suddenly stopped working

I have a Vivitar ViviCam 55 I use to video chat and this morning when I started it up everything looked fine, it suddenly froze, then nothing. I have tried re-installing the drivers, usb ports seem ok, just have no idea what's happened. Windows does not seem to see the camera and gives me an "unknow device" message. A couple of times it said that the device malfunctioned and windows could not recognize it. Has anyone ever seen this before? Any ideas or better yet solutions? Thanks

Do you have an extra cord to try on it? Its the least expensive fix for a camera that stops connecting. Then again, nothing lasts for ever. If it were me I would take it apart before I bought another, I'm like that, I've been taking things apart since I was 2 years old. Sometimes its something simple to find like a disconnected wire or broken connection.