New hardware malwizardy - The obvious tried, Maxtor baffled, I'm stumped

[Adrielle]

I have 2 external Maxtor hard drives. They both work fine. Windows, on the other
hand, does not.

While installing the software for these 2 drives I received several "found new
hardware" wizards. The OneTouch II 300 GB drive went through 3 hardware wizards,
for
OneTouch II
Maxtor OneTouch Security
X Maxtor OneTouch II Disk
The OneTouch 250 GB drive went through only 2 hardware wizards,
OneTouch
X Maxtor OneTouch USB disk
The last ("X") of the series of new hardware wizard installs failed, and the
earlier one(s) succeeded.

I have
o tried to load the drivers on the CD (which worked for the first hardware
wizard(s) without success.
o pointed the wizard at the very device drivers that it in fact needs in the
system32 directory -- it only tilts its nose upwards and sniffs, "I want an .inf
file." (the .inf files on the install CD "do not contain information about the
device" ? that one baffles me).
o spent over 3 hours with Maxtor technicians of varied eptitude installing,
uninstalling, connecting, and disconnecting trying to get this to disappear.
Finally the fellow told me that we had tried everything that he and his second
layer support could think of. He suggested not muck it up too much (I can still
access all functionality) and go talk to the author of this malcontent software.
o looked through this newsgroup for a fix without succcess, but at least now
I'm a little relieved recognizing that this wizard is in fact imperfect. I'm
really wishing this was a printer at this point with an easy fix.

When I look in device manager at the successfully installed drives, there they
sit, happily purring away and wondering what all of the fuss is about
+ Disk drives
Maxtor OneTouch II Disk
Maxtor OneTouch USB disk
+ USB controller
Maxtor OneTouch
Maxtor OneTouch II
No nastly yellow exclamation marks. When looked at in more detail they each
cheerily report, "This device is working properly." If I look further inward I
see device drivers tidily tucked away, just as if they were in fact working.
Which they are. No problem writing to or reading from these drives. Disk
management reports that the partitions/disks are healthy NTFS puppies, active,
and online.

Yet every every every damn time I reboot I get "found new hardware wizards" for
both
Maxtor OneTouch USB Disk
Maxtor OneTouch II Disk

Agh. Curses. Evil thoughts. Any insight appreciated and all reasonable
suggestions humbly attempted. I see there is some solution that involves turning
off balloons (?) but I'd rather not unless that is really the work-around.

Thanks.

 

[Admiral Q]

Is there a reason you are installing the Maxtor software?

I have both a OneTouch USB 120 and OneTouch II USB 250 externals, and XP
recognized them immediately on plug-in, no need for Maxtor's bloatware. The
only caveat is I did reformat them from FAT32 to NTFS.

--
Star Fleet Admiral Q @ your service!
"Google is your Friend!"
www.google.com

***********************************************

 

[Adrielle]

|Is there a reason you are installing the Maxtor software?
Because Maxtor told me to

|I have both a OneTouch USB 120 and OneTouch II USB 250 externals, and XP
|recognized them immediately on plug-in, no need for Maxtor's bloatware. The
|only caveat is I did reformat them from FAT32 to NTFS.
This is a good idea. I am done for today but I will try this tomorrow and
post what happens. Thanks!