External HD Technibble challenge of the day!!

[ell]

ok, heres the deal, I'm stumped. My customer has an external WD1200B015 that will not install correctly with xp sp3. I get the usual "USB device driver !" error. BUT when I plug it into another pc with sp3 xp drivers it installs it no prob.

1. tried to reinstall drivers in safe mode
2. disabled firewall & antivirus
3. ran WD drive utility, SMART tested drive is fine
4. uninstalled all WD software and reinstalled it

One thing I noticed is his master (usually C drive) is the "E" drive, don't know if this has anything to do with it or not.
I left the house with chkdsk running, hopefully maybe that will help, any ideas????

 

[abe]

it may just not be showing in my computer

goto control panel-admistrative tools-computer managment-disk managment- check to see if the drive is listed if yes then rightclick on the drive and change drive letter.

see if that helps

Abe

 

[ell]

ah, good idea. I will give it a try. I also read where deleting the upper & lower filters may work, I've only done that for missing DVD drives, never heard it could work for usb external drives.

 

[ell]

it may just not be showing in my computer

goto control panel-admistrative tools-computer managment-disk managment- check to see if the drive is listed if yes then rightclick on the drive and change drive letter.

see if that helps

Abe

then why would windows have the little warning popup that theres a problem with it?

 

[Flyingbull]

Might be a connection problem with the external, pull it apart and see if it fully seated into the connection.

 

[abe]

@flyingbull

why would it work on another computer?? if its the enclosure that's bad

did you read the op's post


@ell the error maybe due to the main drive bring e

 

[georgenoise]

silly question, but are you positive the computer has USB 2.0 ports. I know I've had my fair share of oddities with 1.1.

 

[ell]

silly question, but are you positive the computer has USB 2.0 ports. I know I've had my fair share of oddities with 1.1.

Pretty sure its 2.0, I've had that issue with 1.1 too, so I did try the rear usb's too. I wonder if it is cuz the main drive is E. However he did have the drive working before, then about a month ago he had me over to fix his system because it was running so slow. I discovered the Retrospect program was stuck constantly trying to backup to the drive, he also had too many startups. I simply unplugged the drive because he didn't want to use it anyway at the time.
So, is it possible to change his master E drive to C in comp mgmt? I can't risk messing anything up, its a business pc. But maybe that won't make any difference, it sees the drive, just can't install it correctly, yellow ! in usb devices. What about the upper & lower filters? Anybody cleared them before for usb drives??

 

[dhrandy]

I think it could be the problem if the computer thinks that the usb hard drive is also the E drive. I've had that problem with daemon tools when I had a virtual drive that was the same letter as my card reader. At first I was wondering why my card reader wasn't working. That turned out to be the problem. If it's not the problem then at least you can rule that out..

How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP

 

[purple_minion]

Pretty sure its 2.0, I've had that issue with 1.1 too, so I did try the rear usb's too. I wonder if it is cuz the main drive is E. However he did have the drive working before, then about a month ago he had me over to fix his system because it was running so slow. I discovered the Retrospect program was stuck constantly trying to backup to the drive, he also had too many startups. I simply unplugged the drive because he didn't want to use it anyway at the time.
So, is it possible to change his master E drive to C in comp mgmt? I can't risk messing anything up, its a business pc. But maybe that won't make any difference, it sees the drive, just can't install it correctly, yellow ! in usb devices. What about the upper & lower filters? Anybody cleared them before for usb drives??

From trying to find a "quick fix" to the stupid M$ drive letter crap from a card reader that threw it off on install, no you really can't change the system drive letter. It's more of a "you could, but it probably won't work." I've tried and just reinstalled because it was easier, it's too far down in there apparently. You can try it, but I'd have a good backup ready. Also, I have a usb drive sitting here next to me that has alllll kinds of problems apparently connecting to XP due to it being usb 1.1 and xp has no way of forcing usb 1.1 specs to it. Sure it's supposed to be backwards compatible but apparently it's not. If I go into linux same issues. If I remove the usb 2.0 driver in linux works flawlessly. Also I used this drive as a transfer drive to another computer and never had any issues with it on that xp machine, no crc error or anything. However this particular machine hates it.

You might try a forensic tool called USBDeview. It shows all the usb devices ever connected to windows. It has items to uninstall as well as some regedit options in the right click menu. Dunno if it will help but worth a try.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

Lots of goodies on that site as well.

 

[ell]

@flyingbull

why would it work on another computer?? if its the enclosure that's bad

did you read the op's post


@ell the error maybe due to the main drive bring e

I'm going to go over and see if the external drive shows in comp mgmt, and give it a drive letter-BUT my question is, will this effect the data on the drive at all? I'm thinking it doesn't because the only program using it is the Retrospect WD software, but I'd thought I'd check with you.

 

[abe]

I have never used wd retrospect but changing the drive letter will not erase the data.

Abe

 

[Flyingbull]

@flyingbull

why would it work on another computer?? if its the enclosure that's bad

did you read the op's post


@ell the error maybe due to the main drive bring e

@abe: I missed that the part about him putting it on another computer.

 

[Irvine5000]

One thing you can try is reinstalling the usb controller drivers on the pc.
I've run into issues before that this has solved. It was pretty strange because a few usb devices would work but a few would not. Reinstalling the drivers took care of it.

If you happen to figure out the fix please post what resolved the issue. I'm interested in these wierd little problems ^_^


Edit: 1. tried to reinstall drivers in safe mode

If you meant the usb drivers then disregard my post.

 

[ell]

One thing you can try is reinstalling the usb controller drivers on the pc.
I've run into issues before that this has solved. It was pretty strange because a few usb devices would work but a few would not. Reinstalling the drivers took care of it.

If you happen to figure out the fix please post what resolved the issue. I'm interested in these wierd little problems ^_^


Edit: 1. tried to reinstall drivers in safe mode

If you meant the usb drivers then disregard my post.

yes I will, this board is a lifesaver for my biz. Good idea, actually I think all I did was try to update the HD driver and ran a scan for hardware changes from the device manager. I never uninstalled the usb drivers. Another post I read that it my be a power issue too when all the other usbs are in use too, I didn't try unplugging the others. Should I uninstall all usb? Windows reinstalls them on reboot correct?

 

[Flyingbull]

@flyingbull

@ell the error maybe due to the main drive bring e

I don't buy that, in the low level world of USB it is only interested in main(0) or main(1). Every file folder, user and device has a unique identifier that cannot be duplicated. That is why you can't recreate users names to open folders. When a USB device is attached to the system, the OS fires the found new hardware event, identifies the hardware, and attempts to associate drivers for it. The USB Drivers, controllers and software don't care where the system drive is at, and if needs that information, it queries the underlining subsystem which gives it the PID of the System Folder/Harddrive.

What troubleshooting did you do? Did you try a differnt USB port on the same computer? Have you tried a differnt USB drive/flash drive/thumb drive to see if that worked? Did you go into file manager and see if any update might have screwed up the USB drivers?

 

[ell]

I don't buy that, in the low level world of USB it is only interested in main(0) or main(1). Every file folder, user and device has a unique identifier that cannot be duplicated. That is why you can't recreate users names to open folders. When a USB device is attached to the system, the OS fires the found new hardware event, identifies the hardware, and attempts to associate drivers for it. The USB Drivers, controllers and software don't care where the system drive is at, and if needs that information, it queries the underlining subsystem which gives it the PID of the System Folder/Harddrive.

What troubleshooting did you do? Did you try a differnt USB port on the same computer? Have you tried a differnt USB drive/flash drive/thumb drive to see if that worked? Did you go into file manager and see if any update might have screwed up the USB drivers?

yes, as mentioned previous, tried other usb ports, other devices in ports work fine, tried plugging it into another pc with xp sp3, it is found fine, no prob. Device manager has yellow ! under usb device, did a driver update and downloaded new one, no go. I checked services too see if i disabled anything too.

 

[Irvine5000]

yes I will, this board is a lifesaver for my biz. Good idea, actually I think all I did was try to update the HD driver and ran a scan for hardware changes from the device manager. I never uninstalled the usb drivers. Another post I read that it my be a power issue too when all the other usbs are in use too, I didn't try unplugging the others. Should I uninstall all usb? Windows reinstalls them on reboot correct?

Yes windows reinstalls them on restart. I would not bother with uninstalling the usb devices as they will just come back after you update the usb drivers (which will need a reboot anyway) I never heard of anything about power issues with all ports being in use but its worth a try i suppose.

 

[Flyingbull]

yes, as mentioned previous, tried other usb ports, other devices in ports work fine, tried plugging it into another pc with xp sp3, it is found fine, no prob. Device manager has yellow ! under usb device, did a driver update and downloaded new one, no go. I checked services too see if i disabled anything too.

Sometimes updating the driver could be the problem, it might be that when they installed it, they plugged it in, then ran the software for it, remove it completely from the system, then try running the update software and see if that solves it. Also did you try putting in a thumbdrive to see if that failed?

 

[ell]

Sometimes updating the driver could be the problem, it might be that when they installed it, they plugged it in, then ran the software for it, remove it completely from the system, then try running the update software and see if that solves it. Also did you try putting in a thumbdrive to see if that failed?

pretty sure that won't work, I just checked WD website says XP drivers are what is used. Retrospect software can't see the drive either. I think whoever installed his master drive replacement really didn't have a clue what they were doing, I 'dreally like to image the data and format it to a C drive instead of E, but hes a realestate appraiser and can't be without it. My flash drive did work in it. I'm really hoping its a letter assignment isssue, hes going to check for me this pm and see if its visible in drive mgmt.