USB working and not working

[PaulTech]

Hi, I've 3 machines (mine and 2 clients) that are running on Win 8.1 and Win 10 which consistently stop seeing USB drives. In most cases shutting down, resetting with the power button and booting up will solve the issue temporarily. I never saw this issue up to Win 7. Has anyone dug into this and found a solution. Here is what I've tried on these three machines (all different) without reliable success:

1. Update BIOS and chipset
2. Update Power settings to not sleep
3. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2830154 <- try this first for a quick fix
Regedit (admin)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub
add new Key: *HubG*
add new: DWORD (32-bit) Value: *DisableOnSoftRemove*
modify *should be 0*
4. Save and reboot.

It appears to me to be somehow related to sleeping of the USB (ie selective suspend of USB devices) but for a laptop, at some point, it is going to be in sleep or hibernate mode. And via devmgmt, uninstalling and re-scanning to re-install does not fix the problem without a restart.

Maybe someone has dug deeper and found a solution?

 

[Pixelated Tech]

To confirm, are you consistently seeing the devices in device manager? Is it only removable storage you are having issues with or is it all USB devices?

I have had issues with a few Windows 8.1 and 10 auto-mount issues in the past during early adoption.

If it is volume specific, try this:

From cmd line, type diskpart, enter, automount enable

Give it a whirl.

 

[Pixelated Tech]

To confirm, are you consistently seeing the devices in device manager? Is it only removable storage you are having issues with or is it all USB devices?

I have had issues with a few Windows 8.1 and 10 auto-mount issues in the past during early adoption.

If it is volume specific, try this:

From cmd line, type diskpart, enter, automount enable

Give it a whirl.

Also check disk management to see if it is showing up.

 

[Diggs]

Individual USB ports can be allowed to sleep by Windows. You can deactivate that feature-

http://superuser.com/questions/309689/how-to-keep-external-usb-drives-from-sleeping-windows-7

 

[Pixelated Tech]

+1 @Diggs for the tip. Excellent point.

 

[PaulTech]

Individual USB ports can be allowed to sleep by Windows. You can deactivate that feature-

http://superuser.com/questions/309689/how-to-keep-external-usb-drives-from-sleeping-windows-7

This just might do the trick. The other setting noted did not resolve the issue.
"In response to your comment that it did not work, try this too. Go into device manager, to the USB root hubs, and turn off the save power option."

 

[PaulTech]

To confirm, are you consistently seeing the devices in device manager? Is it only removable storage you are having issues with or is it all USB devices?

I have had issues with a few Windows 8.1 and 10 auto-mount issues in the past during early adoption.

If it is volume specific, try this:

From cmd line, type diskpart, enter, automount enable

Give it a whirl.

It's specific to USB drives. It may also be related to the driver and chip on the USB itself. When the USB drive no longer has a drive letter it shows in the device manager as a down device. Diggs link about the USB root hub might just be the key.

 

[Pixelated Tech]

At this point I am more inclined to think it is as well.

 

[PaulTech]

On my machine there were two USB Root Hubs and the one listed as xHCI had the "let computer put to sleep" option enabled. Based on the Wiki I'm suspecting this is the problem. I'll post back once I see if it resolves the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Host_Controller_Interface