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Hardware and Windows Vista Hardware issues in relation to Windows Vista. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices) |
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Vista external usb drive issue
Greetings all I just build my first home built system, and I didn't screw it up . I've installed Windows Vista Business 64 bit which I got for free since I'm a student which is a plus and it's been mostly smooth sailing except for one issue which is driving me insane. I have a WD 640gig external HD and every time I connect it Vista searches for the drivers, and then tells me it can't find any. I ask for help and it refers me to Western Digital, who of course tells me that drivers aren't necessary or available for this drive. I've been searching for a solution for two days, and I've found various tricks including manually pointing windows at my system32--drivers folder, deleting and forging a recreation of my INFCACHE.1 file (six times) and copying USBPORT files around. In desperation I've even completely reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows. WD won't help, Microsoft wants my credit card before they will talk to me and I'm about to tear my hair out. At this point I'm considering switching to XP 64 bit, I don't know what else to do. I work technical support for at&t, I have 170 credits of higher education and a subscription to Scientific American and I still can't fix this. Any assistance anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. My system specs: Intel i7 2.66 Asus P6T LGS motherboard Raydeon 4870 1gb 6 gig of OCZ 1333 DDR3 Windows Vista Business 64 bit, SP1 External hard drive: WD Elements 640 gb -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
Do you have Vista SP1 installed and you have you used Winupdate to check for
any USB driver updates? How is the external drive receiving its power? If via the USB cable is it on a separate powered HUB? "cugamer" wrote in message ... Greetings all I just build my first home built system, and I didn't screw it up . I've installed Windows Vista Business 64 bit which I got for free since I'm a student which is a plus and it's been mostly smooth sailing except for one issue which is driving me insane. I have a WD 640gig external HD and every time I connect it Vista searches for the drivers, and then tells me it can't find any. I ask for help and it refers me to Western Digital, who of course tells me that drivers aren't necessary or available for this drive. I've been searching for a solution for two days, and I've found various tricks including manually pointing windows at my system32--drivers folder, deleting and forging a recreation of my INFCACHE.1 file (six times) and copying USBPORT files around. In desperation I've even completely reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows. WD won't help, Microsoft wants my credit card before they will talk to me and I'm about to tear my hair out. At this point I'm considering switching to XP 64 bit, I don't know what else to do. I work technical support for at&t, I have 170 credits of higher education and a subscription to Scientific American and I still can't fix this. Any assistance anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. My system specs: Intel i7 2.66 Asus P6T LGS motherboard Raydeon 4870 1gb 6 gig of OCZ 1333 DDR3 Windows Vista Business 64 bit, SP1 External hard drive: WD Elements 640 gb -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
As you well know Winupdate is the last place to look for driver updates,
unless you want further problems "Curious" wrote in message ... Do you have Vista SP1 installed and you have you used Winupdate to check for any USB driver updates? How is the external drive receiving its power? If via the USB cable is it on a separate powered HUB? "cugamer" wrote in message ... Greetings all I just build my first home built system, and I didn't screw it up . I've installed Windows Vista Business 64 bit which I got for free since I'm a student which is a plus and it's been mostly smooth sailing except for one issue which is driving me insane. I have a WD 640gig external HD and every time I connect it Vista searches for the drivers, and then tells me it can't find any. I ask for help and it refers me to Western Digital, who of course tells me that drivers aren't necessary or available for this drive. I've been searching for a solution for two days, and I've found various tricks including manually pointing windows at my system32--drivers folder, deleting and forging a recreation of my INFCACHE.1 file (six times) and copying USBPORT files around. In desperation I've even completely reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows. WD won't help, Microsoft wants my credit card before they will talk to me and I'm about to tear my hair out. At this point I'm considering switching to XP 64 bit, I don't know what else to do. I work technical support for at&t, I have 170 credits of higher education and a subscription to Scientific American and I still can't fix this. Any assistance anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. My system specs: Intel i7 2.66 Asus P6T LGS motherboard Raydeon 4870 1gb 6 gig of OCZ 1333 DDR3 Windows Vista Business 64 bit, SP1 External hard drive: WD Elements 640 gb -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
Just a suggestion:
Have you tried changing Plug & Play or USB settings in BIOS? "cugamer" wrote in message ... Greetings all I just build my first home built system, and I didn't screw it up . I've installed Windows Vista Business 64 bit which I got for free since I'm a student which is a plus and it's been mostly smooth sailing except for one issue which is driving me insane. I have a WD 640gig external HD and every time I connect it Vista searches for the drivers, and then tells me it can't find any. I ask for help and it refers me to Western Digital, who of course tells me that drivers aren't necessary or available for this drive. I've been searching for a solution for two days, and I've found various tricks including manually pointing windows at my system32--drivers folder, deleting and forging a recreation of my INFCACHE.1 file (six times) and copying USBPORT files around. In desperation I've even completely reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows. WD won't help, Microsoft wants my credit card before they will talk to me and I'm about to tear my hair out. At this point I'm considering switching to XP 64 bit, I don't know what else to do. I work technical support for at&t, I have 170 credits of higher education and a subscription to Scientific American and I still can't fix this. Any assistance anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. My system specs: Intel i7 2.66 Asus P6T LGS motherboard Raydeon 4870 1gb 6 gig of OCZ 1333 DDR3 Windows Vista Business 64 bit, SP1 External hard drive: WD Elements 640 gb -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
I'm running SP1, and there aren't any updates via Winupdate. The hard drive is getting it's power from a separate power cord. Windows recognizes that it's there, even knows what it is (by name) but refuses to install the driver for it. -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
I have tried changing the PnP settings so that the OS has more control, no change in the effect. I've not changed any of the USB settings themselves as they seem set correctly. I should also mention that I have other USB devices (track ball and a 2 gig sandisk thumbdrive) that work just fine. The hard drive works fine in another computer, and a I've tried two of these WD drives in my system, both have the driver problem. One other strange thing I've noticed. Before I installed Vista I had an old copy of XP pro installed, and it didn't seem to want to recognize the hard drive. I didn't push it as I was about to upgrade but this would seem to indicate a hardware problem. Still, the issue is with drivers, which is software and that's where I'm trying to focus and find the solution. -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
Update and change to my issue I've continued trying various fixes I've found on the web and today I've noticed a change. Not any better, but at least I have a different error. I updated my MB BIOS overnight and this morning was going to try the "delete the infcache over and over again" routine when I discovered i didn't have the infcache file. I tried connecting the hard drive and got "One of the usb devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it." Disconnect and reconnect, I get a message telling me that the drivers are successfully installed. Happy dance. When I look in the computer folder, the drive still isn't showing. I notice that infcache has reappeared out of order in my inf folder. I tried deleting it, disconnected and reconnected the HD, back to the "malfunctioned" error. I rebooted, still getting the same error. I've restored the infcache file, stil getting the same error. Just wanted to keep you good folks up to date as the issue seems to have morphed into another, equally irritation one. -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
Try using the HD as the only USB device connected. Try connecting it
directly to the MB USB socket. If more than 1 MB socket, try all of them, one at a time. Check the Asus forums for anything about your MB's USB devices. "cugamer" wrote in message ... Greetings all I just build my first home built system, and I didn't screw it up . I've installed Windows Vista Business 64 bit which I got for free since I'm a student which is a plus and it's been mostly smooth sailing except for one issue which is driving me insane. I have a WD 640gig external HD and every time I connect it Vista searches for the drivers, and then tells me it can't find any. I ask for help and it refers me to Western Digital, who of course tells me that drivers aren't necessary or available for this drive. I've been searching for a solution for two days, and I've found various tricks including manually pointing windows at my system32--drivers folder, deleting and forging a recreation of my INFCACHE.1 file (six times) and copying USBPORT files around. In desperation I've even completely reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows. WD won't help, Microsoft wants my credit card before they will talk to me and I'm about to tear my hair out. At this point I'm considering switching to XP 64 bit, I don't know what else to do. I work technical support for at&t, I have 170 credits of higher education and a subscription to Scientific American and I still can't fix this. Any assistance anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. My system specs: Intel i7 2.66 Asus P6T LGS motherboard Raydeon 4870 1gb 6 gig of OCZ 1333 DDR3 Windows Vista Business 64 bit, SP1 External hard drive: WD Elements 640 gb -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
Thanks for all the suggestions but still no luck. I'm back to the original "can't find driver" error. I've tried it in multiple USB ports, other devices work just fine. Windows identifies the drive as a WD 640 gig device, then refers me to them. Of course, Western Digital is far to cool to provide driver support these days, so that's no help. I can't really blame them as this is something that the worlds most advanced OS should handle with ease. So for I've wasted about six hours of my life on this. Kinda killing the new computer buzz. Thanks for all the help so far, if anyone has more ideas, please, please let me know. -- cugamer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cugamer's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/85605.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-har...es/1149287.htm http://forums.techarena.in |
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Vista external usb drive issue
cugamer wrote:
Thanks for all the suggestions but still no luck. I'm back to the original "can't find driver" error. I've tried it in multiple USB ports, other devices work just fine. Windows identifies the drive as a WD 640 gig device, then refers me to them. Of course, Western Digital is far to cool to provide driver support these days, so that's no help. I can't really blame them as this is something that the worlds most advanced OS should handle with ease. So for I've wasted about six hours of my life on this. Kinda killing the new computer buzz. Thanks for all the help so far, if anyone has more ideas, please, please let me know. join the club, man... unfortunately.. I'm on Vista Ultimate and I'm having the EXACT SAME PROBLEM.. from one day to the other Vista stopped reading ALL THREE of my external HD's.. I tested them at another computer, they all worked fine.. this went on for about a month or so.. finally from one day to the other it started reading the external drive again.. at that point I backed up all my data to the external drive and did a clean re-install of Vista.. (OEM had said this was the solution to the problem of the drive, and other problems I was having (the microphone stopped working, I couldn't use Skype, the control remote stopped working, I couldn't watch movies anymore.. they (OEM) always say that Vista gets "corrupted" and you need to re-install to solve the problems you're having..) but: now, after re-install of Vista, the remote control works again, the microphone works only sometimes, and guess what: about 10 days after the last re-install of Vista once again Vista isn't reading the external drive again, where I have all my data, I can't even back anything up at this point, so I can't re-install Vista again.. until it can read my external drive again.. all the solutions I have found online (a lot of other folks are having this problem, just google "vista not reading external device" or something..) like going to Disk Manager, don't work, I don't even SEE the external drive in Disk Manager... I did a System Restore, of course that didn't work either... this OS is a TOTAL AND UNMITIGATED DISASTER, I have simply NEVER seen such a shoddy product, what a piece of garbage.. (I mean: has anybody EVER heard of an OS that needs to be re-installed every few months or so, wiping your HD in the process because it gets "corrupted" every few months?) this is the most retarded sw ever written... as soon as I have money I will purchase XP and be done w/Vista for good... if you ever find a solution to your problem post here so others can be helped.. in my particular situation I think I have no option but to do a clean re-install of Vista once again.. (I guess I can burn the little data I have created since the last re-install to a DVD (which is still no small feat, as you have to back up email, other settings (bookmarks, etc.)) OH BROTHER.... when will my LONG VISTA nightmare be over.... |