USB external hdd will not initialize (find) at startup

[paabrown]

I have always had the above problem, from XP, XP Professional and now
Vista Home Premium. Unplugging the drive and plugging it in again
fixes the problem. This problem has occurred with 2 different laptops
and a desktop, and with 3 different usb external disk drives. Just to
further confuse the issue, over the last couple of weeks a usb hdd on
the wife's laptop (Presario running XP Home) after being turned on for
about an hour 'suddenly' recognises the hdd. Tried to find a solution
on the web but have been unsuccessful. Can anyone help please?

 

[AlexB]

Make sure there are such files in this folder:
Directory of C:\Windows\Inf
angelusb.inf angelusb.PNF
irstusb.inf irstusb.PNF
stusb2ir.inf stusb2ir.PNF
usb.inf usb.PNF
usbccid.inf usbccid.PNF
usbcir.inf usbcir.PNF
usbport.inf usbport.PNF
usbprint.inf usbprint.PNF
usbstor.inf usbstor.PNF
usbvideo.inf usbvideo.PNF
wceusbsh.inf wceusbsh.PNF
wdma_usb.inf wdma_usb.PNF
winusb.inf winusb.PNF
26 File(s) 1,113,306 bytes
3 Dir(s) 53,645,410,304 bytes free
[usbhub]

Make sure there are such drivers:
Directory Windows\System32\drivers\
usb8023.sys USBAUDIO.sys
USBCAMD.sys USBCAMD2.sys
usbccgp.sys usbcir.sys
usbd.sys usbehci.sys
usbhub.sys usbohci.sys
usbport.sys usbprint.sys
USBSTOR.SYS usbuhci.sys
14 File(s) 857,472 bytes

In one of my Vistas 6 files were missing in the first directory and one
driver in second.

Although I fixed that it did not resolve the story completely. I had this
problem for many years in XP and then in Vista.

What I ended up doing after a person from another forum suggested me to do
was to purchase a Belkin Internal 5-Port USB PCI card. He purchased Belkin.
I did not quite trust the maker but went for his pointer. It resolved the
eissue completely. I removed a firewire PCI card in the back that I never
used and plugged in Belkin. It isntalled itself and I've never had any
problems since.

This card and similar cards by other makers allow for the 5-th USB port to
be engaged. It is not exposed to the elements. It faces the internals of the
computer. However, if you have a floppy you do not need you can buy another
External USB card (not PCI) and mount it up front ripping off the floppy
drive. Thus you will have 8 fully functional USB ports and they will all
work.

I did it on 2 machines so far. I do not need to use the 5th, internal port.
I now have plenty.

 

[RalfG]

It seems to be a common problem with no real solution. A workaround is to
turn the external USB drive off until after Windows has booted. On the
occasions that the drive isn't recognized during boot up (unknown device is
installed instead), I see in UVCview that the USB port the hard drive is
connected to has failed to initialize properly and isn't working. The port
resets to normal after turning off the harddrive or unplugging it from the
USB port.

It doesn't seem to matter which port the drive is plugged into, happens
anywhere. I got the impression it happens more frequently if USB1.1 devices
are connected to the same root hub.

 

[AlexB]

I completely fixed it on two machines as I described in my post. A PCI USB
card appears to be perfect.

This is the reason why it happens.

I think that onboard USB ports have some kind of power limit. It is not
characteristic of old motherboards. I think the limitation is a recent
renovation. Each USB port takes 0.5 A and perhaps even more if the device
does not have internal PSU like some USB hubs do.

When you do it via a PCI card, you relieve the rest of the machine. So far I
haven't had any failures.