My USB device!!

[GoreBag]

Months ago, I bought a hard drive and an "external station" case for it. Basically, I have a hard drive sitting in a case outside my PC. It has its own power source and runs through the USB bus.

Well, ran, actually. A little while ago, it crapped out, simply ceased to function. Windows would pick up that something had been plugged into the USB drive and made that dinky little noise, but it wouldn't read the drive or allow me to access my files. No amount of plugging and unplugging would fix it. Later, after trolling some forums, I discovered that this was part of the problem (the plugging and unplugging, that is - something to do with a great cache of known USB Mass Storage Devices). I found the support page at microsoft.com, but there is no download available for it. I'm told there to call and ask for help, which costs 45 bucks (!). However, on the Microsoft page, there is a little chart that includes the names of two drivers, usbport.sys and usbehci.sys. I searched them over Google and found some downloads for them, but even after installing them in safe mode (so that they might be overwritten properly), the hard drive still won't work.

Just now, I managed to uninstall the USB hard drive and reboot in an attempt to reinstall it, but the drive phased out again during the installation. I have no idea what else to do.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Papewaio]

Try the Microsoft knowledge base on support.microsoft.com

The thing is with phone support it is a best effort. They cannot guarantee that it will work afterwards. And most importantly they do not go anywhere near data recovery, at all, period.

What version of Windows are you using?
What was the last change that happened before the USB device failed? For instance did you do a windows update and then if failed. Critical updates for Windows that cause issues on your system can be free of phone support charge.

Did you add any other devices (it could be a device conflict)?

What is the make of the drive?

Have you tried KB 310575, General USB troubleshooting in Windows XP

[GoreBag]

Try the Microsoft knowledge base on support.microsoft.com

I've browsed through it a few times and the only thing that was really pertinent was the article I linked above.

The thing is with phone support it is a best effort. They cannot guarantee that it will work afterwards. And most importantly they do not go anywhere near data recovery, at all, period.

I figured as much...not worth the money.

What version of Windows are you using?

XP Home Edition, SP2.

What was the last change that happened before the USB device failed? For instance did you do a windows update and then if failed. Critical updates for Windows that cause issues on your system can be free of phone support charge.

Actually, a windows update did occur prior to the device's failure. However, I don't know which update it was because it was being installed in the background without my knowledge. There was a notice about it being free of charge, but it seemed pretty iffy.

Did you add any other devices (it could be a device conflict)?

Nope.

What is the make of the drive?

I'm not sure about the drive itself, but the USB station is built by Enermax:

"EHD-350 FOR 3.5 ATAPI DEVICE USB 2.0"

Have you tried KB 310575, General USB troubleshooting in Windows XP

The only pertinent piece of information is that my device may be malfunctioning or incorrectly configured (my system hangs when it is plugged in), but I figured it was granted that there was some kind of error regarding the configuration since the device isn't working properly.

[Papewaio]

892050 A USB device that is connected to a USB 2.0 hub is not detected in Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, or Windows Server 2003 x64 versions

SYMPTOMS
If you connect a new universal serial bus (USB) device to a USB 2.0 hub on a computer, the computer does not detect the USB device. This symptom occurs if the computer is running one of the following operating systems:
• Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack (SP1)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 versions
Additionally, other USB devices that are already connected to the computer stop functioning, and you have to restart the computer to detect the USB devices.

[GoreBag]

I cannot believe that I did not find this before. Thanks a ton; updates to follow.

[GoreBag]

There's no real change after getting the files. The computer still 'picks up' that there is a USB Mass Storage Device attached, but the computer hangs like mad whenever I try to do anything, and there is no access to the drive. Attempting to perform things like disk management results in a lot of waiting, and then the device is disconnected from the computer (but not physically). I'm back to the first two symptoms described in KB 908673.

[Papewaio]

^%#^&$^$

Okay, do you have access to another PC... that way you can see if the HD's work on another PC.

1st it would allow you to get the information off.
2nd it would prove that the issue is with the current PC not the mass storage device... it could afterall be the USB device that is dead.

If it works on another PC... well you either do a rollback or a reinstall if another method to fix it cannot be found.

[Papewaio]

Have you applied the hotfix at the bottom of article 908673 after the previous one?

[KukriKhan]

I have a Western Digital external HD; I remember the Quick Installation Guide warning me to not disconnect/reconnect its USB cable while the PC was on. But rather to power down the PC first - then disconnect.

Does your External HD show up under disk manager? (Right-click My Computer, Left-click 'Manage', Left-click 'Disk Management') The lower right window pane should identify all recognized drives, and report their 'health'. If your externalHD doesn't appear, or shows health as something other than 'good', this could give us clues as to which machine (PC, Windows, or ExtHD) is faulty.

[GoreBag]

Pape, I'm actually getting rather confused about the hotfixes, now, since different fixes all necessitate different versions of the same file and I can't keep track of which file is best.

Kukri, it only shows up on Disk Management periodically, during the short spurts of forced activity. It always appears as healthy and functional, even if it's not (same with the Device Manager window).

[GoreBag]

Well, as much as I might look like a dong for digging this old thread up, the insanity that came with selling the house is over and I can finally afford to dig the old thing out and try to get it to work again. I'm willing to start cleanly over, driver-wise, so long as I don't need to reinstall Windows or anything that drastic (yet...).

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it in again and, lo and behold, there was nothing. Windows gave me a little 'ding' noise and told me that something had been plugged in with the appearance of a little icon in my taskbar, but also as usual, there was no sign of it when it came time to access my files. Not long afterwards, Windows dinged me to let me know that the device had been disconnected (it hadn't been) and the icon disappeared. I'm back at square one, it seems.

Does anyone have any insight? At all?

[Geezer57]

1.) Find a friend or neighbor with a WinXP w/SP2 machine and a spare USB port. Hook up your external HDD there, and see if it works.

2.) If step 1 fails, disassemble your external HDD, remove the drive, and hook it up internally to a spare controller port in your computer. If you don't have a spare port, temporarily disconnect an optical drive and use that one.

If the drive works internally, but not in your enclosure, then the box is probably bad. If the drive doesn't work internally, then it's probably at fault. Contact WDD for their diagnostic software, if it fails their test, ask for an RMA and get a replacement HDD.

If you have a spare drive, and want to test the enclosure, then install the spare and put it to the test.

External enclosures are some of the harshest environments in which a hard drive has to live. I only use ones with built-in fans, heat sinks, and shutoff switches. Even then you need to take extra precautions to insure HDD life. Also remember that most of these enclosures don't allow for drives to hibernate (which extends their life expectancy), so they keep spinning 24-7 unless you intervene manually. I use my external enclosures only for backup - as soon as that's done, they get shut down. So far, so good.

[caravel]

USB is a bit flakey, especially with removable devices. Try the following:

First check that the removable storage service is running. Run -> "services.msc", find the removable storage service, right click and set to automatic, right click again and click start.

1) Ensure you have the drivers for the disk drive at hand.
2) Connect the drive. Go to device manager, find the USB controller and hub corresponding to the device and expand to the disk drive. Right click the drive and click uninstall.
3) Disconnect the drive.
4) Reboot
5) Connect the drive before windows starts
6) When prompted, reinstall the drivers.

If that doesn't work your problem could be with the hardware.