Microsoft, please fix XP's firewire/USB handling

[Mb]

I'm sick and tired of this.

I have 4-6 PC's running XP in a few locations, I do a lot of DV editing.
Since Windows 2000, the same problems exist. You'd figure Microsoft
would have fixed these issues by now, but even SP2 doesn't.

The main problems are:

- lack of hard drive recognition when used in conjunction with
firewire/USB enclosures (half the time drives aren't seen, you have to
turn them off and on or reboot finally they are recognized)

- "delay write error to firewire hard drive", I get this a lot. It's a
pain and the MS patch doesn't help any. A serious problem that I've seen
since Windows 2000.

- weird hiccups & problems here and there like when daisy chaining
drives or losing drive letters suddenly, once I lost all data on a
firewire drive -- all of it!!!

- can't safely unplug a drive, or takes far too long to unplug

Lots of people are using firewire/usb cases now. Mac's are great in this
regard, many Final Cut Pro workshops give you your own firewire drive
that you plug in/out as needed. I'd like to see the problems with that
using Windows.

I like XP in all other regards. It's great, but Microsoft has to review
their entire implementation of firewire when it comes to storage, in
particular in the up coming Vista. For multimedia applications, external
drives are a must, but XP is so glitchy I can't write directly to them
without crashing often -- so I only use them to copy to.

I've experienced this since Windows 2000 and through many drives, many
types of enclosures and on numerous PC's ranging from IBM to Dell to
Gateway running 2000, XP Pro and XP home. THE PROBLEMS ARE OBVIOUSLY
OPERATING SYSTEM BASED!!!! So, please MS, do all of us video
editors/multimedia authors/designers a big favor, fix this stuff, it's
been going on long enough and makes one want to seriously look at Mac
alternatives.


MB

 

[Martijn Saly]

I'm sick and tired of this.

I have 4-6 PC's running XP in a few locations, I do a lot of DV editing.
Since Windows 2000, the same problems exist. You'd figure Microsoft
would have fixed these issues by now, but even SP2 doesn't.

The main problems are:

- lack of hard drive recognition when used in conjunction with
firewire/USB enclosures (half the time drives aren't seen, you have to
turn them off and on or reboot finally they are recognized)

- "delay write error to firewire hard drive", I get this a lot. It's a
pain and the MS patch doesn't help any. A serious problem that I've seen
since Windows 2000.

- weird hiccups & problems here and there like when daisy chaining
drives or losing drive letters suddenly, once I lost all data on a
firewire drive -- all of it!!!

- can't safely unplug a drive, or takes far too long to unplug

Lots of people are using firewire/usb cases now. Mac's are great in this
regard, many Final Cut Pro workshops give you your own firewire drive
that you plug in/out as needed. I'd like to see the problems with that
using Windows.

I like XP in all other regards. It's great, but Microsoft has to review
their entire implementation of firewire when it comes to storage, in
particular in the up coming Vista. For multimedia applications, external
drives are a must, but XP is so glitchy I can't write directly to them
without crashing often -- so I only use them to copy to.

I've experienced this since Windows 2000 and through many drives, many
types of enclosures and on numerous PC's ranging from IBM to Dell to
Gateway running 2000, XP Pro and XP home. THE PROBLEMS ARE OBVIOUSLY
OPERATING SYSTEM BASED!!!! So, please MS, do all of us video
editors/multimedia authors/designers a big favor, fix this stuff, it's
been going on long enough and makes one want to seriously look at Mac
alternatives.

I agree with you to a certain level. Altough you describe really serious
problems, I've had less serious (but still serious) problems in the same
area. I've got a bus-powered USB drive and when I unplug it physically
sometimes files are corrupted. EVEN when those files are no longer in use by
an application! I've also had a situation where I normally shut down the PC
and then unplugged the drive. When I reconnected the drive to another PC, I
found numerous corrupted files!

And even though the write cache is disabled, the filesystem sometimes gets
corrupted, too. If the write cache is disabled, then how can this happen?
Everything is supposedly immediately flushed to disk, so the OS can't
"forget" to flush something.

I suspect system restore is part of the problem. It keeps certain files and
folders opened and that's not good for a removable drive. Why is system
restore even enabled on removable drives? That doesn't make sense to begin with!

 

[Gordon]

I'm sick and tired of this.

Got an 80GB ext Firewire drive that I swap backwards and forwards between my
Laptop and desktop - never had any problems at all! (XP SP2......)

 

[CWatters]

- "delay write error to firewire hard drive", I get this a lot. It's a
pain and the MS patch doesn't help any. A serious problem that I've seen
since Windows 2000.

I was once able to provoke/cure a Delayed Write Error on a USB drive just by
changing the share properties of a folder on the drive. It was quite
repeatable. That felt like a "system" problem rather than a hardware
specific problem.

 

[CWatters]

This thread has some interesting comments on it. See the one posted by
netguy on Tue May 04, 2004 10:39 regarding a reply from Maxtor.

http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=16&threadid=50469

 

[NoStop]

I'm sick and tired of this.

Yep, MickeyMouse sure did blow it big time when it came up with USB2
drivers. Like you I've wondered why they don't fix the damn thing. Then I
remember that MickeyMouse doesn't give a shit about its user base. It's
only in the game to amass the largest profits it can while driving
innovation backwards. Then I remember why I don't use MickeyMouse software
for any serious computing. I'm not going to support the Evil Empire as it
runs roughshod over computer users around the world. Sheeple will continue
to live with the dumbing down that comes with using a toy operating system
like XP. Serious computer users have long ago migrated to Linux.

 

[Donald McDaniel]

Yep, MickeyMouse sure did blow it big time when it came up with USB2
drivers. Like you I've wondered why they don't fix the damn thing. Then I
remember that MickeyMouse doesn't give a shit about its user base. It's
only in the game to amass the largest profits it can while driving
innovation backwards. Then I remember why I don't use MickeyMouse software
for any serious computing. I'm not going to support the Evil Empire as it
runs roughshod over computer users around the world. Sheeple will continue
to live with the dumbing down that comes with using a toy operating system
like XP. Serious computer users have long ago migrated to Linux.

I don't know why some XP users are having problems with FireWire and
USB2 and complain about XP's USB2 driver. I have had absolutely no
problems with either of: installing XP on a newly-installed SATA HD,
or using FireWire, or USB2. When I plug in a USB2 device, it boots up
immediately and without problems (IF I have the right software
installed for that particular device, and followed its recommended
installation procedure. This usually means that I first install the
drivers and software provided by the device manufacturer, then reboot
-- the installation program will probably appear after rebooting to
continue the physical installation of the device. This is usually
accomplished by plugging it into a convenient USB (1 or 2) port at
this time. Just follow the instruction of the installation program,
and you will be successful. If I plug in my external FireWire HD, it
appears in Windows within 5 seconds, with nary a whisper of complaint.

ATI provides the FireWire driver for the port on my Video card, and
Microsoft provides the USB2 driver for the USB ports built into my
system. I had to download it from Microsoft, however, since it was
not included with any of the Betas, Release Candidate 1+2, RTM or
Service Pack 1, and I had a fresh install with XP slipstreamed with
SP2. For some reason, SP2 did not install a USB2 driver. When I
attempted to install the ASUS USB2 driver from the ASUS motherboard
setup disc, the installation program told me to not to use the ASUS
USB2 driver, but to download the driver from Microsoft .

In addition, I have a motherboard which integrates and implements
USB2 very professionally (cheap motherboards are "usually" poorly
engineered and built. In other words, they are "thrown together and
soldered with spit". Note that I said "usually" when referring to
cheap motherboards. Some cheap motherboards are very well engineered
and constructed, and built from first-rate components.)

In my personal opinion, many installation and operation problems can
be avoided by choosing well-engineered-and-built motherboards with
Intel chipsets (avoid VIA like the plague!) when purchasing or
obtaining components for your home-built-and-maintained systems.

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread
so that conversations may be kept in order
=======================================================

 

[Donald McDaniel]

Yep, MickeyMouse sure did blow it big time when it came up with USB2
drivers. Like you I've wondered why they don't fix the damn thing. Then I
remember that MickeyMouse doesn't give a shit about its user base. It's
only in the game to amass the largest profits it can while driving
innovation backwards. Then I remember why I don't use MickeyMouse software
for any serious computing. I'm not going to support the Evil Empire as it
runs roughshod over computer users around the world. Sheeple will continue
to live with the dumbing down that comes with using a toy operating system
like XP. Serious computer users have long ago migrated to Linux.

"Serious" computer users use "BIG IRON" mainframes running 4G
Operating Systems built by computer scientists with advanced
mathematics and physics degrees, not Linux open-source(pronounced
"hobbyist") "programmers" who learned how to "program" by
cut-and-paste operations of standard modules in their compiler IDE.
They all steal and use each other's work and fail to document the
original author's name in their source code, then call themselves
"programmers". What a laugh!

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread
so that conversations may be kept in order
=======================================================