USB flash drive mount process is hit and miss and slow

insomniac7

Distinguished
Oct 6, 2011
3
0
18,510
:hello: Symptoms:
1. Plug in a known working 16GB USB Flash drive (FAT32).
2. Device is recognized and shows up in Device Manager within a few seconds but not mounted.
3. Drive activity LED flashes for about 1 minute
4. Then it either mounts the drive normally and shows it in Explorer
OR
Explorer displays a message saying the drive cannot be accessed and needs to be formatted (when viewed in Disk Manager, it shows file system as RAW) Trying to format the drive at this stage fails.

But the flash drive is actually functioning consistently fine when used in my WIN XP machines and OSX machines. I'm pretty sure there is nothing wrong with the drive.

Sometimes uninstalling the USB Flash drive and USB Mass Storage drivers for the particular USB port in Device Manager, and then scanning for hardware changes, results in a successful mount. Sometimes not.

Have noticed in Task Manager sometimes multiple copies of DLL process associated with Safe Removal function. I always use Safe Removal to unmount the drive.

Have noticed it takes a long time to display directory contents of flash drive for the first time once it is successfully mounted.

Have searched through many threads dealing with this or similar problems but can't find any explanation for my problem

Can anyone help please?
 

insomniac7

Distinguished
Oct 6, 2011
3
0
18,510


I wondered about this, Device Manager->USB Root Hub Properties->Power Tab shows 200mA for USB Mass Storage Device
Can run a webcam off the same port at 500mA (according to the Power Tab)



Thanks that sounds like a good idea.. I'll try this when there is time for a reboot.

Should also mention that until recently I was running Win XP on this machine, using the same port and the same flash drive with no problems.
 

insomniac7

Distinguished
Oct 6, 2011
3
0
18,510
Restarted in SAFE mode, plugged in the flash drive and it appears in Explorer after about 15 seconds, functioning properly. Did this 10 times with no problem.

So this implies some software is interfering with the mount process.

Guess I'll have to uninstall packages until the problem disappears :sleep: (have a hunch it might be acronis true image)
 

djgrizzlypaws

Honorable
Jan 15, 2013
1
0
10,510
I have the same problem whereby Windows 7 is taking ages to open a usb device mp3 player. It eventually crashes explorer if you try to open or right click on the USB device (Drive F in this case). It recognises the device after a while but cant open properly.