USB Hard Drive Lock-up

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

1.) Computer is based upon the Intel D875PBZ motherboard
2.) WinXP Pro SP2 and all updates
3.) This motherboard /system has multiple USB ports (front/back)

Cause for current situation:

External USB hard drive lost power when attached to the front USB port.
WinXP was in the middle of the "AutoPlay" function, where it was reading the
directory of the attached hard drive, after being attached to the system.

Problem:

External USB hard drive is not damaged.

The hard drive works properly on rear USB ports of the system (as well as
other computers)

When it is attached to the front USB ports - it is not immediately
recognized or available.
Drive letter is NOT established (assigned) and Disk Management will usually
lock-up (or take a very long time to "come up").

Other non-hard drive devices (Iomega Zip Drive) work fine with the USB port.
========
Previous steps taken (without resolution).

1. Uninstalled the specific USB port and USB root hub (device drivers) for
the motherboard -- and then reinstalled.
2. Logical Drive Manager usually locks up, when it does it sees partition
(on the USB drive) it has no drive letter - and drive letter can not be
assigned.

Easiest way to "clear" the corrupted hard drive config for this port?

g. beat

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

This solution was probided by Nathan McNulty (note - it requires Registry
editing):

You will need to remove the instance of the external USB Hard drive from
the registry before it will work properly in the front panel again. It
creates a different key in the registry when you use a different port.
This is why it works in the back ports. Try this:

First, remove the USB HD if it is connected, then click Start-Run-Type
regedit and click OK. Navigate to HKLM\System\CCS\Enum\USB and look for
the Vid_Xxxx folder that contains information about your USB HD in the
folders under it. Now right click on the Vid_Xxxx folder that contains
info about your USB HD, click Permissions and set it to allow full
control. Now right click on the key and delete it. Do this for all
folders labeled Vid_Xxxx that contain information about your USB HD
(should only be one, but may have multiple folders under it).

----
Nathan McNulty


"G.Beat" <onw9mapsgb@no.comcast.spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:e05FsGopEHA.1160@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> 1.) Computer is based upon the Intel D875PBZ motherboard
> 2.) WinXP Pro SP2 and all updates
> 3.) This motherboard /system has multiple USB ports (front/back)
>
> Cause for current situation:
>
> External USB hard drive lost power when attached to the front USB port.
> WinXP was in the middle of the "AutoPlay" function, where it was reading
> the directory of the attached hard drive, after being attached to the
> system.
>
> Problem:
>
> External USB hard drive is not damaged.
>
> The hard drive works properly on rear USB ports of the system (as well as
> other computers)
>
> When it is attached to the front USB ports - it is not immediately
> recognized or available.
> Drive letter is NOT established (assigned) and Disk Management will
> usually lock-up (or take a very long time to "come up").
>
> Other non-hard drive devices (Iomega Zip Drive) work fine with the USB
> port.
> ========
> Previous steps taken (without resolution).
>
> 1. Uninstalled the specific USB port and USB root hub (device drivers) for
> the motherboard -- and then reinstalled.
> 2. Logical Drive Manager usually locks up, when it does it sees partition
> (on the USB drive) it has no drive letter - and drive letter can not be
> assigned.
>
> Easiest way to "clear" the corrupted hard drive config for this port?
>
> g. beat
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

"G.Beat" <onw9mapsgb@no.comcast.spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:e05FsGopEHA.1160@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> 1.) Computer is based upon the Intel D875PBZ motherboard
> 2.) WinXP Pro SP2 and all updates
> 3.) This motherboard /system has multiple USB ports (front/back)
>
> Cause for current situation:
>
> External USB hard drive lost power when attached to the front USB port.
> WinXP was in the middle of the "AutoPlay" function, where it was reading
> the directory of the attached hard drive, after being attached to the
> system.
>
> Problem:
>
> External USB hard drive is not damaged.
>
> The hard drive works properly on rear USB ports of the system (as well as
> other computers)
>
> When it is attached to the front USB ports - it is not immediately
> recognized or available.
> Drive letter is NOT established (assigned) and Disk Management will
> usually lock-up (or take a very long time to "come up").
>
> Other non-hard drive devices (Iomega Zip Drive) work fine with the USB
> port.
> ========
> Previous steps taken (without resolution).
>
> 1. Uninstalled the specific USB port and USB root hub (device drivers) for
> the motherboard -- and then reinstalled.
> 2. Logical Drive Manager usually locks up, when it does it sees partition
> (on the USB drive) it has no drive letter - and drive letter can not be
> assigned.
>
> Easiest way to "clear" the corrupted hard drive config for this port?
>
> g. beat
>
You clearly have done all that is logical to do, that is reinstalled drivers
and confirmed the external drive itself is healthy.

As far as I know the HDD drivers are not port specific. The only thing that
occurs to me is the connector at the front is damaged in some way to give a
high resistance connection. I realize you have tried to eliminate that by
saying your zip drive works from that connection but does the zip drive use
the same pins as the HDD? I don't know, it seems as if it is likely it does
but who knows? You say it takes 'time' for the drive to be recognized when
connected to the front port or not available, that does perhaps suggest a
connection problem. Might be worth looking into.

Good luck and I certainly will be interested to hear the solution when you
find it.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

"Edward W. Thompson" <thomeduk1@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:ORppJurpEHA.3524@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>
> "G.Beat" <onw9mapsgb@no.comcast.spam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:e05FsGopEHA.1160@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> 1.) Computer is based upon the Intel D875PBZ motherboard
>> 2.) WinXP Pro SP2 and all updates
>> 3.) This motherboard /system has multiple USB ports (front/back)
>>
>> Cause for current situation:
>>
>> External USB hard drive lost power when attached to the front USB port.
>> WinXP was in the middle of the "AutoPlay" function, where it was reading
>> the directory of the attached hard drive, after being attached to the
>> system.
>>
>> Problem:
>>
>> External USB hard drive is not damaged.
>>
>> The hard drive works properly on rear USB ports of the system (as well as
>> other computers)
>>
>> When it is attached to the front USB ports - it is not immediately
>> recognized or available.
>> Drive letter is NOT established (assigned) and Disk Management will
>> usually lock-up (or take a very long time to "come up").
>>
>> Other non-hard drive devices (Iomega Zip Drive) work fine with the USB
>> port.
>> ========
>> Previous steps taken (without resolution).
>>
>> 1. Uninstalled the specific USB port and USB root hub (device drivers)
>> for the motherboard -- and then reinstalled.
>> 2. Logical Drive Manager usually locks up, when it does it sees partition
>> (on the USB drive) it has no drive letter - and drive letter can not be
>> assigned.
>>
>> Easiest way to "clear" the corrupted hard drive config for this port?
>>
>> g. beat
>>
> You clearly have done all that is logical to do, that is reinstalled
> drivers and confirmed the external drive itself is healthy.
>
> As far as I know the HDD drivers are not port specific. The only thing
> that occurs to me is the connector at the front is damaged in some way to
> give a high resistance connection. I realize you have tried to eliminate
> that by saying your zip drive works from that connection but does the zip
> drive use the same pins as the HDD? I don't know, it seems as if it is
> likely it does but who knows? You say it takes 'time' for the drive to be
> recognized when connected to the front port or not available, that does
> perhaps suggest a connection problem. Might be worth looking into.
>
> Good luck and I certainly will be interested to hear the solution when you
> find it.
Nice try, the USB standard is quite straight-forward ... the port and
connector work properly .. int hat all other devices function properly and
are recognized by WinXP.

This is definitely an issue of the driver and OS stack. After about 25
minutes, WinXP finally said F: Local Disk , but did not have the directory.

No, this is definitely a Windows XP problem (even with SP2) and its
inability to "flush the config buffer" and start fresh... maybe in SP3 they
will get it right. Granted, loss of power does not normally occur ... BUT
it is a real life event taht must be palnned and designed for.

gb

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

I have checked my system against this advice and note that the Permissions
are checked as 'Read' and not Full Control. My External USB HDD and all
other drives work perfectly from both front and rear USB ports. I assume
'Read' must be the WINXP default setting as I have reinstalled WINXP SP2 on
to this machine within the last few days.


"G.Beat" <onw9mapsgb@no.comcast.spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:OR2s3tupEHA.3520@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> This solution was probided by Nathan McNulty (note - it requires Registry
> editing):
>
> You will need to remove the instance of the external USB Hard drive from
> the registry before it will work properly in the front panel again. It
> creates a different key in the registry when you use a different port.
> This is why it works in the back ports. Try this:
>
> First, remove the USB HD if it is connected, then click Start-Run-Type
> regedit and click OK. Navigate to HKLM\System\CCS\Enum\USB and look for
> the Vid_Xxxx folder that contains information about your USB HD in the
> folders under it. Now right click on the Vid_Xxxx folder that contains
> info about your USB HD, click Permissions and set it to allow full
> control. Now right click on the key and delete it. Do this for all
> folders labeled Vid_Xxxx that contain information about your USB HD
> (should only be one, but may have multiple folders under it).
>
> ----
> Nathan McNulty
>
>
> "G.Beat" <onw9mapsgb@no.comcast.spam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:e05FsGopEHA.1160@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> 1.) Computer is based upon the Intel D875PBZ motherboard
>> 2.) WinXP Pro SP2 and all updates
>> 3.) This motherboard /system has multiple USB ports (front/back)
>>
>> Cause for current situation:
>>
>> External USB hard drive lost power when attached to the front USB port.
>> WinXP was in the middle of the "AutoPlay" function, where it was reading
>> the directory of the attached hard drive, after being attached to the
>> system.
>>
>> Problem:
>>
>> External USB hard drive is not damaged.
>>
>> The hard drive works properly on rear USB ports of the system (as well as
>> other computers)
>>
>> When it is attached to the front USB ports - it is not immediately
>> recognized or available.
>> Drive letter is NOT established (assigned) and Disk Management will
>> usually lock-up (or take a very long time to "come up").
>>
>> Other non-hard drive devices (Iomega Zip Drive) work fine with the USB
>> port.
>> ========
>> Previous steps taken (without resolution).
>>
>> 1. Uninstalled the specific USB port and USB root hub (device drivers)
>> for the motherboard -- and then reinstalled.
>> 2. Logical Drive Manager usually locks up, when it does it sees partition
>> (on the USB drive) it has no drive letter - and drive letter can not be
>> assigned.
>>
>> Easiest way to "clear" the corrupted hard drive config for this port?
>>
>> g. beat
>>
>>
>>
>
>