Hero does come with an USB cable.
Check your charger as it is 2-in-1 charger and USB cable

 

You do need a usb cable.
If you haven't got one how are you charging your phone ?.

 

A tip for anyone with a spare mini-USB cable laying around... use that with the mains charger - works fine. You need the 11-pin extended mini-USB (as shipped with the Hero) for sync/file transfer so you can leave it hooked up to your PC permanently.

 

Mine comes apart accidentally when I yank it!

 

You don't need the extended cable for file/sync, I don't even know where mine is any more, I just use mini-usb all the time. The extended pins carry audio signals for headsets and microphone I think.

 

That's useful to know, but I remember people having problems doing something with standard cables that the extended one solved..... updating the ROM maybe?

 

The cables that came with my heros are still wrapped in the boxes... not had any issues using a standard mini usb cable for data transfer and I've used various mini usb chargers depending where I am (htc touch charger, blackberry charger, generic mini usb charger) all work fine.

 

YOU ARE A LIFESAVER... I checked and you are absolutely right...

 

Ok, I need some clarification. My hero syncs and charges with no problem on the HTC supplied USB cable but when I plug in a generic mini usb cable, I can charge but not sync. For some reason, the phone says that it can't find HTC sync and HTC sync on the PC says "disconnected" regardless of what I do. Help!

 

Use the supplied cable.... Simples

 

Uninstall the software, reinstall and try again. It probably hasn't installed drivers correctly.

I've only used a generic mini USB cable when connecting to the PC and it's always worked fine.

Edit: re-read what you wrote. maybe your cable is faulty lol.

 

used generic usb to transfer files. Don't want to hi jack, but what about car chargers. do u need to use an htc only

 

You can use any mini-USB car charger, I have several, however some can be noisy, one or two that I did use made the phone heat up and crash on occasion, those I dumped. All the ones I've used are generic ones that plug into a car lighter socket and offer one or two USB sockets, then I just use a normal USB to USB mini cable from a camera or whatever to link it to the phone.

 

Success! After trying several mini USB cables, I finally found one that allowed me to mount the phone as usual and also do a sync. What a pain! For the other cables that didn't work, I've never had problems with any other devices!