partenope,

Well, I can say that you should not need any drivers for this device, other
than those that Vista automatically assigns to the device. So, you should
stop thinking along the lines of there could be a driver you need to
download. The only exception would be if somehow your motherboard and its
chipsets and chipset drivers don't support USB 2.0. I have no idea what type
system you have, so it's up to you to know about this point.

Try connecting the drive to different USB ports. Some motherboards have
separate ports for USB 1.0/1.1 and USB 2.0, usually those boards that are not
of current manufacture. In addition, reformat the drive in Vista, in case
The WinXP format is somehow different from that of Vista and could be causing
a problem. It's not necessary to change the name of the volume from that of
the default. You can make the change later if that's important to you.

Don't focus on USB items in Device Manager that are not causing a problem.
Only focus on how Device Manager handles the problem device. Adding comments
about other devices have no bearing on the problem and only cause confusion.

I don't see how any registry entries could have anything to do with your
problem. I think the registry hack you're talking about has to do with using
a USB flash drive that Vista doesn't recognize as ReadyBoost capable. The
hack causes Vista to use it for ReadyBoost. Your problem is to get Vista to
accept the device in any form. So, forget registry hacks for this problem.

For just your problem device, Device Manager should recognize it in the
three place as I indicated in my previous post. Check on how Device Manager
shows this drive in those three places (forget all the other USB items). I'm
almost out of ideas. The only other step I could recommend is to do some USB
troubleshooting steps that you have not done, but I can post those later
after you have followed up on what we've discussed here.
--
freddy


"partenope" wrote:

Ok.. "magical" thinking here. I'm struggling at the edge of my knowledge,
and I'm hoping that you're close to omniscient.

I'll explain with details embedded, below.

"freddy" wrote:

Good morning partenope,

I'm having difficulty following your descriptions. For example, I don't
know what USB HF-CF or any of the other similar descriptions mean,

Those are the built-in Dell 13-in-1 card reader: Compact Flask, SD card,
and, I assume, whatever other memory cards.

such as USB 2.0 FD, etc.

That is the PNY Optima Attache 2 GB memory stick in question. The one I
bought because my other memory sticks weren't being recognized, and it was
labled "Vista Ready."

In summary, it appears to me that Vista is recognizing the
drive, but is having a problem with the way it's configured, judging from the
Code 1 you have.

The Optimize Memory window you're getting

I should point out that I only got it once (or maybe twice) but I didn't act
on it fast enough to get the computer to use it for that session. (more
info below)

is Windows trying to tell you that
you can use the drive as a ReadyBoost device. This is OK. You can choose to
use the drive in that manner or not. If you don't know about ReadyBoost, you
can use google to learn more. I'm using a 2 GB USB SanDisk as a ReadyBoost
device, and I've not had any problem with it, so I know that Vista can work
with these USB type flash drives.

Yes. Excellent idea. After I started researching the web for my problem,
I initially thought that may be the ONLY use for it. I have 2 Gig of
onboard memory (and slots for 2 gig more, and I've had a dozen apps open in
their own windows in addition to all the background items running, so I
assume that I'm good for now in the memory department.

At this point, I'd suggest you contact the manufacturer's tech support, if
they have one, to determine what they say about the configuration of the
drive. I don't know what configuration the drive should have. Did the drive
come with any instructions about that? You may also try using google to see
whether you can find any information about that issue. Likely others have
posted about this on the Internet, if they have had a problem.

Manufacturer says it's Vista compliant, that I should call M/S tech support.
Google finds several references to XP problems. Possible solutions,
delete INFCASH.1 (did that), reformat flash drive (did that), finally, there
was a Windows Vista Magazine registry tweak (
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\EMDMgmt\_??_USBSTOR#Disk&Ven_PNY &Prod_USB_2.0_FD&Rev_2048#AA00000000001978&0#{53f5 6307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}USB20FD_3160073302
in my case.

"Change Device Status to 2, ReadSpeadKBs and WriteSpeed KBs to 1000."

A few readers had success with that. At first I found no such entry, just
now I did -- but no success.

Also, peruse the manufacturer's website for any information on what the
story is about this drive. Did the drive come with any pre installed
software? If it did, that can cause a conflict with Vista, as it's likely
not compatible with Vista. I'm just not familiar with this device. You can
also try viewing the drive in Vista's Disk Management utility: Right click
Computer (formerly My Computer), select Manage and then select Disk
Management. The drive should show up there and perhaps it will display some
indication on the status of the drive and thus give you a clue as to what is
wrong with it.

It did show up there one time, when I clicked on "open file." I managed to
copy a few files to it, and assumed (hoped) that the problem had magically
gone away (perhaps because I was now using a Vista ready device and Vista had
"figured it out." But, it went back to "New Hardware Found" and eventually
"Device Driver software was not successfully installed" after finding nothing
on my hard drive, in Windows Update, or "on the web" (where ever Vista looks).

I think my flash drive is formatted in FAT 32, and Vista has no problem with
that. In Disk Management, you may try formatting the drive in FAT 32 to see
whether that solves the problem.

I found mine as FAT 32 on my XP computer, and reformatted it there. The
Volume Name wasn't accepted as "USB 2.0 FD" (spaces and period), so I
changed it a bit. Vista still recognizes USB 2.0 FD under other devices. I
don't get to the point where I can read the volume name.

Just some suggetions. Post back on the results you get.
--

Thanks! I really appreciate your tackling this (and, so far, am enjoying
the challenge, myself).

I still suspect there may be an answer in this near mythical "wpdfs.inf" --
but I only find it a couple places in my registry (in connection with the PNY
flash drive), and allusion to it in my temp file, and a asian site (with
mostly, I believe, Asian characters) on Google. Nothing from Search all of
M/S.