USB Hard Drive/Mp3 Player

[shmoes]

Hey All,

So i've recently upgraded to Vista's SP2, and in doing so i've effectively disabled any functionality from from USB harddrives.. vista no longer sees them.

I've tried them in XP on the laptop and they're fine. the only signifigant change is upgrading the service pack. Has anyone else experienced this problem and come up with a solution?

Thanks!

Andre

~AZ

 

[shmoes]

Further to:

4GB datatraveller thumbdrive do work fine..

just the western digital 300GB passport drive and 20GB Iriver mp3 player (old school)

~AZ

 

[linney]

Have you tried using a different USB port, perhaps a rear one rather than front loading ports?
A standard fix for all things USB is to uninstall everything USB in Device Manager, reboot, and let Windows rediscover them.

See if you can get any clues from these articles, even if the last one is XP related?

Change USB Permissions in Vista?
thread1583-1348460

Unable to open usb mass storage drive
thread779-1536755

You can wade through these if nothing else turns up.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...+not+recognized+-xp&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

How to uninstall Windows Vista service packs as a troubleshooting step

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948537#appliesto

 

[shmoes]

Thanks for the response, I pondered deleting everything USB, but I haven't braven that step yet. I've tried front and rear usb ports to no avail, i've also tried most of the tips i've found in alternate forums .. I don't think reversing the service pack is my best option... at some point it's going to be mandatory for updated :|

I guess i'll try deleting everything USB and see what happens..

Thanks!

~AZ

 

[linney]

I don't think reversing the service pack is my best option... at some point it's going to be mandatory for updated".

Yes, probably by Windows 7, if your lucky.

See how you go with the Device Manager removal of USB and let us know.

Troubleshooting for USB drives

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html

USBDeview v1.41 - View all installed/connected USB devices on your system

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

 

[shmoes]

ok sorry for the delayed update .. but here it is.
Removing all the usb devices made no difference.

On my laptop I have 2 USB ports it's running windows XP.
I can connect the HD and it works fine and I have no issues using the cable that came with it.

On my desktop I have vista 64bit and I have 3 different locations where I have USB ports

1) front
2) back lower
3) back upper (under keyboard port)

Using default cable that came with it, it doesn't work on ANY of the USB port locations.

Using a new cable in ports 1 and 3 it doesn't work
Using a new cable in ports 2 it works fine!!

Here's where it gets interesting.
Using the new cable on the laptop, it doesn't work.

I'm completely blown away, I'm glad it's working.. but what a gong show of trial and error to get it going.


~AZ

 

[linney]

Weird to say the least. Have you got any more cables that you can check results with?

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Here is something else to try, it may or may not help but at this point it doesn't like you have many options.

First you need to see your hidden devices, run this code at a command prompt:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
devmgmt.msc

Once your device manager shows up, click VIEW then SHOW HIDDEN DEVICES. Go down to your USB Controllers, usually your last item. Delete anything grayed out. Just click on it, hit your delete key.

Reboot and see if that works.

Again I am just throwing out something to try, it may or may not work but it wont hurt anything by removing old devices.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[kjv1611]

Using a new cable in ports 1 and 3 it doesn't work
Using a new cable in ports 2 it works fine!!

Actually, I think this is possibly explainable. I imagine it's possible that one of your USB ports may be getting more juice from the motherboard than the other two, and that may explain some of the issue. If this is the case, it could also point to your cable not supplying enough electricity to the devices to communicate with them, and operate. It's possible that with SP2, MS introduced more power-handling code to try and increase battery life in laptops, or just reduce the energy load. After all, Green is THE thing in technology of late, it seems.

The power/electricity thing could explain it all. Your USB flash drive would require the least amount of electricity of the 3 devices mentioned. Do you have an external power source for either the MP3 player or the hard drive, which you can plug up while it's connected via USB?

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me