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.