Can't Purge USB Drive that Doesn't Exist

[Jay Gourley]

My Wind2000 Pro keeps loading a "Generic STORAGE DEVICE USB Device" that
doesn't exist. It's blocking recognition of my CDROM drive which does exist
and is installed and recognized. Device manger says the CDROM driver cannot
load. Uninstalling the non-existent USB device and rebooting doesn't work.
The OS just finds it again. I cannot find where this device is coming from.
Ideas? --Jay

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My Wind2000 Pro keeps loading a "Generic STORAGE DEVICE USB Device" that
doesn't exist. It's blocking recognition of my CDROM drive which does exist
and is installed and recognized. Device manger says the CDROM driver cannot
load. Uninstalling the non-existent USB device and rebooting doesn't work.
The OS just finds it again. I cannot find where this device is coming from.
Ideas? --Jay

There appears to be a contradiction in your post. First you write
"It's blocking recognition of my CDROM drive", and then you continue with
"which does exist and is installed and recognized".

Is it recognised or not recognised?

You could try and disable the phantom USB device via the
Device Manager.

 

[Jay Gourley]

The CD-ROM drive hardware is being recognized both by the motherboard before
the operating system loads and later by the Windows device manager, which
says the device driver could not be loaded. It is not recognized as a
device by the windows file structure, i.e. Windows Explorer shows no IDE
CD-ROM drive. It only shows as USB Mass Storage Device at drive letter D:.
That USB storage device exists only in the virtual sense, not in the
physical sense. The CD-ROM drive, which exists in the physical sense, is
not displayed by Windows Explorer.

 

[Tim]

I would check to see if you have any unwanted layered device drivers
installed.

This may not be the cause of your problem, but it is easy to check...

The ones I have found causing such problems are the GearSec and GearASPI
drivers installed by applications such as (I beleive) Alcohol 120%, many CD
imaging programs (not Nero, not the well known commercial apps), I believe I
found Partition Magic appeared to install one as well.

The kinds of problems they cause include: CD drives with assigned drive
letters disappearing. Duplicate CD drives with different drive letters
appearing and only 1 working, SCSI controller (DFT?) appearing in Device
Manager when none are installed, totally unreliable writing to a new DVD
drive..

If you are adept at using regedit, then fire it up (you will *not* be
changing anything or deleting anything), open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, System,
Current Control Set, Services and scan down looking for anything to do with
GearSec or GearASPI.

Alternatively look in %systemroot&\System32\drivers for any Gear*.sys files.
Existence of any of these are evidence of such layered drivers.

You can also see (in Windows XP) the drivers if you have a good look around
at your CD / DVD drives in Device Manager.

If you find such things, then deinstall any CD ripping or other non
commercial software that may be installed and check in the Drivers folder or
Services in the registry to see if the driver has been removed.

I have heard all sorts of weird reports of things going wrong with these
drivers present that this *may* be the cause. It may not....

Failing all the above, I would check for inactive / deleted hardware in
device manager: open it up and click Show Hidden Devices on the View menu
and also View by connection. Deleted hardware appears greyed. It is valid
for hardware to be 'deleted' under normal conditions - you may have EG 1 x
Sony Digital Camera that is normally plugged into USB#1 but has also been
plugged into USB #2, #3, and #4 so may see entries for all 4 - don't delete
them.

BOL

- Tim