Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

I have an extremely stable Dell 4100 (with an Adaptec USB2 Adaptor) running
Win2000 SP4. Sandisk's 512MB Cruzer memory stick works great with it as does
every other USB1/USB2 device.

I bought a Sandisk Micro 512MB memory stick and when I simply put it into
the USB2 port, Win2000 said "found new hardware" and installed a driver for
it (even though it does not require any drivers with Win2000 or Win/XP, and
there are none!!!). It then asked me to restart to make the changes take
effect. The restart failed with boot drive inaccessible. Attempts to start
using safe mode and last-known-good also failed. Luckily I had an image
backup from 2 weeks ago and could restore without too much damage.

Can anyone offer a possible explanation? I am shocked that this could happen
by merely inserting a USB device that needs no drivers, yet I have not found
any reported incidents like mine on Sandisk support or other forums. It
seems Win2000 mis-identified the device but even so what happened is
atrocious.

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"D. Miller" <dougm12a@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:W_2dnfvpU4V5Ct3fRVn-gA@adelphia.com...
>I have an extremely stable Dell 4100 (with an Adaptec USB2 Adaptor) running
>Win2000 SP4. Sandisk's 512MB Cruzer memory stick works great with it as
>does every other USB1/USB2 device.
>
> I bought a Sandisk Micro 512MB memory stick and when I simply put it into
> the USB2 port, Win2000 said "found new hardware" and installed a driver
> for it (even though it does not require any drivers with Win2000 or
> Win/XP, and there are none!!!). It then asked me to restart to make the
> changes take effect. The restart failed with boot drive inaccessible.
> Attempts to start using safe mode and last-known-good also failed. Luckily
> I had an image backup from 2 weeks ago and could restore without too much
> damage.
>
> Can anyone offer a possible explanation? I am shocked that this could
> happen by merely inserting a USB device that needs no drivers, yet I have
> not found any reported incidents like mine on Sandisk support or other
> forums. It seems Win2000 mis-identified the device but even so what
> happened is atrocious.
>

Are you sure your machine does not have the option to boot from a USB drive
enabled in the BIOS, this is not the normal boot selection but a separate
option. Not all motherboards support this but it is quite common on newer
systems.



--
Chris
Technical director CKCCOMPUSCRIPT
Apple Computers, Intel, Roland audio, ATI, Microsoft, Sun Solaris, Cisco and
Silicone Graphics.
Wholesale distributor and specialist audio visual computers and servers
FREE SUPPORT @,
http://www.ckccomp.plus.com/site/page.HTM
ckccomp25@hotmail.com

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:10:44 -0500, "D. Miller"
<dougm12a@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I have an extremely stable Dell 4100 (with an Adaptec USB2 Adaptor) running
>Win2000 SP4. Sandisk's 512MB Cruzer memory stick works great with it as does
>every other USB1/USB2 device.
>
>I bought a Sandisk Micro 512MB memory stick and when I simply put it into
>the USB2 port, Win2000 said "found new hardware" and installed a driver for
>it (even though it does not require any drivers with Win2000 or Win/XP, and
>there are none!!!). It then asked me to restart to make the changes take
>effect. The restart failed with boot drive inaccessible. Attempts to start
>using safe mode and last-known-good also failed. Luckily I had an image
>backup from 2 weeks ago and could restore without too much damage.

Is it possible the thumbdrive was taking precidence in the
bios' boot order and due to bios bug it hung... but that if
you powered off system, disconnected the thumbdrive and THEN
tried to boot, it'd work?

If not, it seems more like a Windows' flaw than a thumbdrive
flaw, since as you wrote there was no driver, this was all
windows' doing.

>
>Can anyone offer a possible explanation? I am shocked that this could happen
>by merely inserting a USB device that needs no drivers, yet I have not found
>any reported incidents like mine on Sandisk support or other forums. It
>seems Win2000 mis-identified the device but even so what happened is
>atrocious.
>

I've seen win2k SP4 do wierd and unexplainable things when
USB "drives" of one sort or another were attached. One
system was running along fine then (for the first time) a
thumbdrive was introduced (think it was an "Alladvantage" in
this case, or maybe "Microadvantage" or something similar),
then Event Viewer starts showing bad blocks on the OS drive
during IDE access attempts. Could've been coincidence, but
an awfully big one if so. HDD manufacturer diagnostics show
nothing wrong with the drive, appears as though Windows IDE
driver just decided to go berserk. Yet another reason why
backups are important I suppose...

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Suddenly, without warning, kony exclaimed (3/23/2005 2:41 AM):
> On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:10:44 -0500, "D. Miller"
> <dougm12a@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I have an extremely stable Dell 4100 (with an Adaptec USB2 Adaptor) running
>>Win2000 SP4. Sandisk's 512MB Cruzer memory stick works great with it as does
>>every other USB1/USB2 device.
>>
>>I bought a Sandisk Micro 512MB memory stick and when I simply put it into
>>the USB2 port, Win2000 said "found new hardware" and installed a driver for
>>it (even though it does not require any drivers with Win2000 or Win/XP, and
>>there are none!!!). It then asked me to restart to make the changes take
>>effect. The restart failed with boot drive inaccessible. Attempts to start
>>using safe mode and last-known-good also failed. Luckily I had an image
>>backup from 2 weeks ago and could restore without too much damage.
>

>
> I've seen win2k SP4 do wierd and unexplainable things when
> USB "drives" of one sort or another were attached. One
> system was running along fine then (for the first time) a
> thumbdrive was introduced (think it was an "Alladvantage" in
> this case, or maybe "Microadvantage" or something similar),
> then Event Viewer starts showing bad blocks on the OS drive
> during IDE access attempts. Could've been coincidence, but
> an awfully big one if so. HDD manufacturer diagnostics show
> nothing wrong with the drive, appears as though Windows IDE
> driver just decided to go berserk. Yet another reason why
> backups are important I suppose...
>

I have Win2K SP4, and a 512MB Cruzer Titanium. It's seen heavy use
today, I installed PortableFirefox, PortableThunderbird,
TrillianAnywhere, and Irfanview to the key and tested them on the PC and
laptop. No problems here, it even works fine on the USB1.1 slots on my
XP Home laptop.

The Cruzer comes with a bunch of software on it... I seem to remember
getting "found new hardware" the first time I inserted the Cruzer as
well. It did it's thing, no problems though. About the worse thing
that happens, is sometimes it's not recognized on first insertion. Pull
it out and back in, works fine. Nice blue glow

Unfortunately, I don't have any advice to offer, except to suggest that
maybe you have a defective key.

jmc