Issues in Stopping USB devices, starting them, seeing them in network

[Guest]

One thing solved and another back slides. Two external USB hard drives
were hard to stop for safe removal....but I found a nifty little
utility called unlocker that works like a charm and should be in
everyones satchel of tricks.

Now, when I restart these drives, sometimes they are showing shared
on the network and sometimes they have to be re-initialized for
network sharing

Also, sometimes other computers can access them...when they are
shared...and sometimes they cannot share them. There is no problems
accessing them from the host in any event since they are recognized as
native to the host.

This sharing and visibility problem may better be addressed in the
Network forum, but it is a problem unique to these USB drives...so, I
am thinking that I am missing something in stopping and starting and
sharing them.

Any ideas what may be happening??

Henry

 

[NeoDude]

USB hard drives really aren't meant to be stopped - "stopped" in the Windows
sense means that nothing is using it and it can be removed with nothing
noticing; that's not really an option for hard drives.

It's just a thought, as the largest network I deal with is a three-computer
home network, but perhaps the drives being unplugged in the first place is
what's making their network settings change? Removable media certainly
isn't designed to be shared, and perhaps Windows thought that applied to the
hard drives too.

 

[Guest]

Problem solved...maybe...in Netwoking forum. There is a Registry
IRPStackSize value in the server...host...PC which the external USB
drives are connected to. Now, setting this parameter...which was
missing...requires rebooting, and after the reboot, all networked PCs
can see and access the external USB devices. It remains to be seen
whether the reboot solved the problem or the Registry Stack size setup
did the trick.

However, it should not be necessary to re-boot once the drives are
enabled and sharing is set, especially if they are safely turned off.
Other USB devices are recognized when powered on and immediately
useable, so maybe the stack fix will do the trick...again, time will
tell.

Henry