New hardware necromancy - The obvious tried, Maxtor baffled

[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
where the last ("X") of the series of new hardware wizard installs failed.

I have
o spent many hours myself and with Maxtor trying to get Windows to accept
the fact that indeed this new hardware has succeeded in being installed and
would it kindly shut up.
o tried to load drivers from the CD or even the system32 directory to bypass
this, without success.
o pointed the cursed wizard at the very device drivers that it in fact needs,
and it tilts its nose upwards and sniffs, "I want an .inf file." (Of course 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, and he suggested to try and 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

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 working. Indeed so.
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. Thanks.

 

[Bob S.]

Sounds like a HAL problem (hardware abstract layer).. You could try opening
the Device Manager, > View > Select "Show Hidden Devices" and see how many
entries you have for USB Mass Storage Device and any other entries for hard
drives that > may < be causing a conflict. Delete all the USB entries and
let windows rebuild.

It's been awhile but I did find some KB articles on MS site about USB
problems. Are they USB 1.1 or 2.0 ports ? Are these USB ports on an add-on
card ? Do you have both USB 1.1 and 2.0 ports on the same system? Which SP
is installed? SP-1 has a number of issues with USB 1.1 ports. Are you
using a RAID card or other SCSII emulator card like a Promise Technology or
Ultra cards to support other hard drives? USB 1.1 and Promise Technology
cards have a difficult time in cooperating.

Running any 1394 ports on the system? Minimize the system, delete the
entries in the Device Manager and then add things back one at a time and
rebuild. If you can't get the HAL back in order - it may time to wipe out
the system and rebuild. Could in-fact be a lot less aggravating and time
consuming.

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

Make sure that you plug it into the same USB port every time.

Also you can use Disk Management to assign it a drive letter. Try 'M' as in
Maxtor.

 

[Andy]

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
where the last ("X") of the series of new hardware wizard installs failed.

The only thing I can say is external USB hard drives don't need any
special drivers. Just plug it in, run Disk Management, and partition
and format.

 

[Adrielle]

Make sure that you plug it into the same USB port every time. Also you can use Disk Management to assign it a drive letter. Try 'M' as in Maxtor.

Thanks. This is a real possibility. I have in fact moved the USB ports around,
partly because the guy at Maxtor had me installing and reinstalling. If this is
the problem, does fixing it mean uninstalling everything, reinstalling, and
staying put?

I'd already assigned drive letters.

 

[Adrielle]

The only thing I can say is external USB hard drives don't need any
special drivers. Just plug it in, run Disk Management, and partition
and format.

Thank you for responding. Yea, that it my understanding too. All I can say is
that the Maxtor software wouldn't install unless I specifically pointed the
installation to the device drivers on the CD. That should not have mattered, but
apparently it did because that worked. Once it was successfully installed I ran
Disk Management, partitioned and formatted. It has worked since then, but I keep
getting these hardware wizards.

I just got a response from a different newsgroup that agrees with you -- he
suggested simply uninstalling everything and just plugging in the drives. I
don't really like the Maxtor software anyway, built for idjits, and so this may
work.

 

[Adrielle]

You could try opening the Device Manager, > View > Select "Show Hidden Devices" and see how many

entries you have for USB Mass Storage Device and any other entries for hard drives that > may < be causing a conflict.

I turned on "show all hidden devices" and the ones shown did not change. They
were
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE
Maxtor OneTouch
Maxtor OneTouch II
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
Are any of these suspect?

Are they USB 1.1 or 2.0 ports ? Are these USB ports on an add-on ard ?

It is a Dell 4600, 8 USB 2.0 ports, on-board only

Which SP s installed?

SP-2, up to date (Windows update claims 0 updates available)

using a RAID card or other SCSII emulator card like a Promise Technology or Ultra cards to support other hard drives? Nope

Running any 1394 ports on the system? Minimize the system, delete the entries in the Device Manager and then add things back one at a time and rebuild. If you can't get the HAL back in order - it may time to wipe out the system and rebuild. Could in-fact be a lot less aggravating and time consuming.

How do I know re. 1394 ports? This part is beyond my technical ken.
Am I right in assuming that I don't need to the HAL back in order? If I did
need to how do I do that?

 

[Bob S.]

Adrielle,

The entries below for the USB look okay and since you're not getting any
error messages about the HAL.dll being corrupted or missing and you have
SP-2 installed, then according to MS Knowledge Base - you don't have a
problem.... and everything is fine.... So what's yer problem.....;-)

I just checked the Dell site for this model and it does not come with any
FireWire (1394) ports (slower but similar to a USB port) and it does have 8,
USB 2.0 ports which according to the device listing - everything is fine -
hardware wise.

I did some searching, as you did, and could not find a definitive answer for
the "Found new hardware" but there does appear to be a common fix - delete
the drivers, device entries and let it discover the hardware again.

Be sure to uninstall the Maxtor drivers first and then I would delete all
the entries in the USB device category, only plug in one of the USB drives
and let windows rebuild. When you reboot - do a power off and then restore
power. I've noted (as many others have) that once a USB device is connected
to a particular USB port - keep using that same port for that device. I
cannot explain why - just that it has been said many times in a number of
forums. I've also read and I believe it was a MS article (TechNet) that if
a driver is required for a USB device that you need to install that driver
for each port the device will be used on. So if your drives do need the
drivers to run (shouldn't) and you plug them into different ports, then you
would need to plug the device into a USB port and load the driver and repeat
for each port that will be used. Sounds a little flaky and since I've not
done it (nor had any reason to test it), I can't vouch that it will work.

But see if you can't get one USB drive working on one USB port - and go from
there. This is one of those "You shouldn't be having this problem" but you
do, so minimize the system by eliminating any other USB devices and drivers
and rebuild the system - one item at a time.

Should you get the hardware Wizard asking you for a driver, install it as
per the instructions. I'll continue to try to find the reference (MS KB
article) that finally led me to resolving the problem I had similar to
this - it may be the key. When and if I find it, I'll post the reference
here.

Bob S.



hard drives that > may < be causing a conflict.

I turned on "show all hidden devices" and the ones shown did not change. They
were
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE
Maxtor OneTouch
Maxtor OneTouch II
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
Are any of these suspect?

It is a Dell 4600, 8 USB 2.0 ports, on-board only

SP-2, up to date (Windows update claims 0 updates available)

or Ultra cards to support other hard drives?

Nope

entries in the Device Manager and then add things back one at a time and
rebuild. If you can't get the HAL back in order - it may time to wipe out
the system and rebuild. Could in-fact be a lot less aggravating and time
consuming.