more on USB devices

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Paul Ney

[device recognised, but not accessible] An external hard drive (enclosure
with power supply and USB cable) has been connected to a USB port, WinXP
(Device Manager) recognized it, and so did Western Digital' Data Lifeguard
Tools too. But the system did not propose a name (character), thus the drive
could not be accessed by the Explorer.

Q1: What failed? Does it make a sense to enforce a name and/or is there any
MS tool doing this?

Q2: Some system programs -- e.g. of WinXP or the WD' Tools -- are still able
to access the external drive and to return standard information. Are there
other "sysgoodies" that could return even some data from the drive?

[device accepted on the spot] Another drive (other enclosure with its own
power supply and USB cable) has been conneted to the same USB port and
recognised & accepted on the spot. The system said it's drive E and enabled
me to access it with the Explorer. Then I de-installed the drive, connected
the first drive, but with the same outcome as depicted above. BTW: both
drives are FAT32, while the XP works with NTFS. One could insert the first
drive into the second enclosure and try again, but the first enclosure
already worked well with a FAT32 Win98.

Thanks for any hints.
 
Paul Ney wrote:
> [device recognised, but not accessible] An external hard drive (enclosure
> with power supply and USB cable) has been connected to a USB port, WinXP
> (Device Manager) recognized it, and so did Western Digital' Data Lifeguard
> Tools too. But the system did not propose a name (character), thus the
> drive
> could not be accessed by the Explorer.
>
> Q1: What failed? Does it make a sense to enforce a name and/or is there any
> MS tool doing this?
>
> Q2: Some system programs -- e.g. of WinXP or the WD' Tools -- are still
> able
> to access the external drive and to return standard information. Are there
> other "sysgoodies" that could return even some data from the drive?
>
> [device accepted on the spot] Another drive (other enclosure with its own
> power supply and USB cable) has been conneted to the same USB port and
> recognised & accepted on the spot. The system said it's drive E and enabled
> me to access it with the Explorer. Then I de-installed the drive, connected
> the first drive, but with the same outcome as depicted above. BTW: both
> drives are FAT32, while the XP works with NTFS. One could insert the first
> drive into the second enclosure and try again, but the first enclosure
> already worked well with a FAT32 Win98.
>
> Thanks for any hints.

So, to review

First drive + WinXP = No Drive Letter
Second drive + WinXP = Works OK
First drive + Win98 = Works OK

If the third combination works, I take it you aren't worried about
backing up the data ?

If you go to Disk Management with the first combination, does anything
show up for the device there ? For example, I have a foreign file system
on my second drive, and Disk Management shows "Healthy" for the foreign
partition, but no drive letter (which makes sense). There are two partitions
on the disk, and Disk Management shows two partitions as expected. In your case,
does the number of partitions for the disk look correct, just no letter ?

There is a procedure for resetting the USB stack here, for what it's worth.
Basically, what this does, is cause Windows to re-enumerate and reinstall
the native USB drivers.

http://www.usbman.com/Guides/Cleanup Device Manager Safe Mode.htm

Paul
 
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote on 09.11.2007 12:11 GMT the news message
news:fh1mar$bp0$1@aioe.org...

> Paul Ney wrote:
>> [device recognised, but not accessible] An external hard drive (enclosure
>> with power supply and USB cable) has been connected to a USB port, WinXP
>> (Device Manager) recognized it, and so did Western Digital' Data
>> Lifeguard
>> Tools too. But the system did not propose a name (character), thus the
>> drive could not be accessed by the Explorer.

> So, to review
>
> First drive + WinXP = No Drive Letter
> Second drive + WinXP = Works OK
> First drive + Win98 = Works OK
>
> If the third combination works, I take it you aren't worried about
> backing up the data ?
>
> If you go to Disk Management with the first combination, does anything
> show up for the device there ? For example, I have a foreign file system
> on my second drive, and Disk Management shows "Healthy" for the foreign
> partition, but no drive letter (which makes sense). There are two
> partitions on the disk, and Disk Management shows two partitions as
> expected. In your case, does the number of partitions for the disk look
> correct, just no letter ?
>
> There is a procedure for resetting the USB stack here, for what it's
> worth. Basically, what this does, is cause Windows to re-enumerate and
> reinstall the native USB drivers.
>
> http://www.usbman.com/Guides/Cleanup Device Manager Safe Mode.htm
>
> Paul

Thanks for the hints, http://www.usbman.com was also very helpful. On the
first disk: I know it has only one partition, the Device Manager correctly
acknowledges the disk, but the system did not propose a name (char). I guess
there might be a problem with the disk, if the system could not read it or
just its "table of contents", then it won't propose a name. I think I would
use a utility that could handle physical as well as logical drives, it
would read out whatever data it could find.

PY
 
Paul Ney wrote:
>
> "Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote on 09.11.2007 12:11 GMT the news message
> news:fh1mar$bp0$1@aioe.org...
>
>> Paul Ney wrote:
>>> [device recognised, but not accessible] An external hard drive
>>> (enclosure
>>> with power supply and USB cable) has been connected to a USB port, WinXP
>>> (Device Manager) recognized it, and so did Western Digital' Data
>>> Lifeguard
>>> Tools too. But the system did not propose a name (character), thus the
>>> drive could not be accessed by the Explorer.
>
>> So, to review
>>
>> First drive + WinXP = No Drive Letter
>> Second drive + WinXP = Works OK
>> First drive + Win98 = Works OK
>>
>> If the third combination works, I take it you aren't worried about
>> backing up the data ?
>>
>> If you go to Disk Management with the first combination, does anything
>> show up for the device there ? For example, I have a foreign file system
>> on my second drive, and Disk Management shows "Healthy" for the foreign
>> partition, but no drive letter (which makes sense). There are two
>> partitions on the disk, and Disk Management shows two partitions as
>> expected. In your case, does the number of partitions for the disk look
>> correct, just no letter ?
>>
>> There is a procedure for resetting the USB stack here, for what it's
>> worth. Basically, what this does, is cause Windows to re-enumerate and
>> reinstall the native USB drivers.
>>
>> http://www.usbman.com/Guides/Cleanup Device Manager Safe Mode.htm
>>
>> Paul
>
> Thanks for the hints, http://www.usbman.com was also very helpful. On the
> first disk: I know it has only one partition, the Device Manager correctly
> acknowledges the disk, but the system did not propose a name (char). I
> guess
> there might be a problem with the disk, if the system could not read it or
> just its "table of contents", then it won't propose a name. I think I would
> use a utility that could handle physical as well as logical drives, it
> would read out whatever data it could find.
>
> PY

It is funny that Win98 can see it and use a letter for it. The partition
must be FAT32 for that, so it probably isn't NTFS. If the data on there
is important, I'd take the drive back to Win98 and transfer it off to
another drive. Then, see if you can fix it, using whatever means. But
backup would be the first step.

Paul
 
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