USB hard disks

[Mark Rae]

Hi,

OK - here's possibly an interesting one...

I have recently purchased a new PC which has two SATA hard drives - no IDE
drives at all.

Have installed my MSDN copy of Vista Business on it - for development and
testing purposes, naturally...

I also have a USB IDE hard disk harness which allows me to treat a
stand-alone IDE hard drive as a USB device.

When I plug the USB hard disk into one of the new PC's USB ports, it
recognises it as a removable device but, because the machine has no IDE hard
disk drivers on it, doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't create a drive
letter for it etc... Windows Explorer (you know what I mean) seems to hang
for an age while it tries to work out what to do with the new device, then
displays nothing.

Installing Vista onto a machine with IDE hard disks doesn't display this
behaviour because it already knows all about IDE hard drives and what to do
with them.

What's the easiest way round this? Is it simply a matter of copying some
files from the Vista image into the PC's %SYSTEM32% folder, or is there more
to it than that...?

Any assistance gratefully received.

Mark

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Check your BIOS settings for your board. I don't see why the firmware in
the drive enclosure wouldn't communicate with the usb bus just fine. I
can't imagine that the IDE connection in the enclosure would make any
difference at all. The enclosure is not connecting to an IDE port on the
box. The system should just see it as a mass storage device.

 

[Mark Rae]

Check your BIOS settings for your board.

You mean the motherboard on the PC...?

I don't see why the firmware in the drive enclosure wouldn't communicate
with the usb bus just fine. I can't imagine that the IDE connection in
the enclosure would make any difference at all. The enclosure is not
connecting to an IDE port on the box. The system should just see it as a
mass storage device.

Everything you say makes perfect sense, and would have been my reaction
too...

However, after having tried on five separate machines now, the common
denominator appears to be whether the machine has IDE drives or not. If it
has, the USB harness works - if it hasn't, it doesn't...

I'm considering installing an IDE hard disk into the new machine which
currently has only SATA drives, though the motherboard has the standard two
dual IDE channels... Doing that should prove / disprove it...

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

That just does not sound right. Check with the manufacturer of the
enclosure.

I know a lot of the recent boards have PATA turned off in the BIOS. Check
your board manual or the website for the right settings and give it a try.
But I still don't see how anything IDE on the board could matter. I don't
care whether the connector in the enclosure is for an IDE or SATA drive, if
you are using the usb connector on the enclosure you are connecting to the
usb bus on the computer. A puzzler.

OT: If you have an external SATA connector on the box, try a SATA enclosure
sometime. On the newer boxes the external connector is just like having a
SATA 5 (assuming you have 4 SATA connectors on the board) and you can use it
as a boot drive. I did that all through the beta and RC.

 

[Rich Milburn [MVP]]

You said you had no IDE, but presumably you have a DVD drive right? And it
would be PATA/IDE?

Possibly this is a somewhat simpler issue - make sure the IDE drive is
jumpered as Master. Not Cable Select, and definately not Slave. That can
be the difference between working and not. If you are seeing the USB Mass
Storage interface installed but not a disk, that is very possibly the issue.

Rich

 

[Bill Frisbee]

Mark,

Not sure why, all four of my hard drives are SATA2, and my DVD is SATA1. No
IDE.
I have two USB 2.0 "fobs" a 1.0 GB and a 512 MB and don't run into the same
problem.

What happens when you launch the disk manager?


Bill F.

 

[Gene Fitzpatrick]

That doesn't sound right to me either. I have a computer in which the
installed hard drive is SATA only, and I have both my USB and Firewire drive
running with no issues.

 

[Mountain Man]

"Disk"drivers are part of windows regardless of installing the motherboard
drivers or not.
That includes drivers for USB.
All the years I have been installing XP or any other version of windows ALL
hard drives are seen and can be used before the "chipset"drivers were
installed.
Vista is no different.
I installed Vista and external hard drives work ok.
There are built in drivers for hard drives in Vista and there are no
motherboard drivers anywhere yet.

 

[Mark Rae]

That just does not sound right.

I know!

Check with the manufacturer of the enclosure.

I will do. FWIW, the USB hard disk enclosure also works perfectly when
connected to my Mac Mini...

I know a lot of the recent boards have PATA turned off in the BIOS. Check
your board manual or the website for the right settings and give it a try.
But I still don't see how anything IDE on the board could matter. I don't
care whether the connector in the enclosure is for an IDE or SATA drive,
if you are using the usb connector on the enclosure you are connecting to
the usb bus on the computer.

PATA isn't turned off.

A puzzler.

You're telling me! This is an example of what I'm seeing:
http://www.markrae.com/USBHD.jpg

Obviously, that's a WinXP machine, but it's the same sort of thing in Vista.

 

[Mountain Man]

That's a USB "driver"problem.

I know!


I will do. FWIW, the USB hard disk enclosure also works perfectly when
connected to my Mac Mini...


PATA isn't turned off.


You're telling me! This is an example of what I'm seeing:
http://www.markrae.com/USBHD.jpg

Obviously, that's a WinXP machine, but it's the same sort of thing in
Vista.

 

[Mountain Man]

That's a USB driver problem.

I know!


I will do. FWIW, the USB hard disk enclosure also works perfectly when
connected to my Mac Mini...


PATA isn't turned off.


You're telling me! This is an example of what I'm seeing:
http://www.markrae.com/USBHD.jpg

Obviously, that's a WinXP machine, but it's the same sort of thing in
Vista.

 

[Mark Rae]

That's a USB driver problem.

Hmm - OK - not sure what I can do about that, then...

The USB hard disk enclosure is the *only* one I'm having any problems with -
everything else e.g. PNY memory stick, card reader for the Smart cards which
my digital camera uses, USB keyboards & mice, iPod Shuffle etc etc works
perfectly across all platforms and OS versions...

I'll contact the manufacturer.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

This is not the first such problem to show up with usb devices in Vista. In
TechBeta we were advised to keep track of product model number info for
drive enclosures that acted this way and file reports. MS was collecting
the info and working with the enclosure manufacturers where they could about
their firmware.

When the enclosure is fine on the same machine under XP or fine on your
other computers and other usb devices are working OK under Vista it is
likely the enclosure. It appears that Vista tolerances are tighter than was
XP's.

There have been a couple of threads in here concerning Maxtor One-Touch
enclosures not even being detected that worked fine on the same machines
under XP.

It is hard to see how a usb driver is causing this since there are no third
party usb drivers for Vista that I know of.

 

[Mark Rae]

This is not the first such problem to show up with usb devices in Vista.
In TechBeta we were advised to keep track of product model number info for
drive enclosures that acted this way and file reports. MS was collecting
the info and working with the enclosure manufacturers where they could
about their firmware.

Aha - now we're getting somewhere...

When the enclosure is fine on the same machine under XP or fine on your
other computers and other usb devices are working OK under Vista it is
likely the enclosure. It appears that Vista tolerances are tighter than
was XP's.

I see. Like I said, it works on my Mac Mini and it works in XP and Vista so
long as the machine running XP or Vista has got IDE drives - I realise
everyone is telling me that this doesn't / shouldn't / can't make any
difference, but all I can tell you is that it does! That's is the only
common determining factor that I can see...

There have been a couple of threads in here concerning Maxtor One-Touch
enclosures not even being detected that worked fine on the same machines
under XP.

The device in question is this:
http://www.usbtech.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/198 although
mine might be a slightly earlier model.

USBTech tech support tell me that there are no drivers for XP or Vista
because they're not required...

It is hard to see how a usb driver is causing this since there are no
third party usb drivers for Vista that I know of.

That's what the tech support guy said...

 

[Mark Rae]

You said you had no IDE,
Correct.

but presumably you have a DVD drive right?
Yes.

And it would be PATA/IDE?

No - it's SATA1.

Possibly this is a somewhat simpler issue - make sure the IDE drive is
jumpered as Master. Not Cable Select, and definately not Slave. That can
be the difference between working and not. If you are seeing the USB Mass
Storage interface installed but not a disk, that is very possibly the
issue.

Way ahead of you - already tried all three jumper settings (and none at
all) - made no difference.

 

[Mark Rae]

What happens when you launch the disk manager?

It hangs - which is to say, that it doesn't display the disks, and the
cursor remains as an hourglass.

Incidentally, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the USB
drivers, because when I click "Safely Remove Hardware" XP / Vista seems to
know precisely what sort of device it is: http://www.markrae.com/USBHD2.jpg

So, it looks as if XP / Vista knows that it's a USB mass storage device,
even knows the make and model of the hard disk in the harness, but doesn't
know what to do with it next (i.e. assign it the next available drive
letter) because it's an IDE device and there are no IDE drivers installed...

 

[Mark Rae]

those drivers for handling IDE drives. The OP's original description of
the
problem is exactly correct. Windows did not install IDE drivers because
there were no IDE devices.

Well, that certainly makes sense to me, and appears to be exactly what is
happening...

One suggestion I have is to install Vista with the external drive
connected.

Hmm - yes, but the whole point of the external hard disk harness is
portability - not much use if I have to reinstall the operating system every
time I want to put it into a different machine...

I would categorize this as a bug in that one would hope the USB/IDE
connection would recognize the lack of drivers and install them - and
hopefully not remove them if you reboot without the external drive!

I would agree. I guess the device manufacturer's tech support guy was
correct when he said there are no XP / Vista drivers for this device because
they're not required as they already exist in XP / Vista - yes, but only if
they've been installed because the machine contains IDE devices...

 

[Mark Rae]

It hangs - which is to say, that it doesn't display the disks, and the
cursor remains as an hourglass.

The clot thickens...

In between reading your post, trying Disk Manager, and replying I made
myself a cuppa and, upon my return, Disk Manager had become responsive
again: http://www.markrae.com/USBHD3.jpg

However, although the device has (eventually!) been recognised as a mass
storage device, it hasn't been correctly identified as a hard disk, so has
not been assigned a drive letter - as you can see, I can't even assign it a
drive letter manually...

It is FAT32 formatted, but that hasn't been recognised either.

 

[andy]

Well, that certainly makes sense to me, and appears to be exactly what is
happening...


Hmm - yes, but the whole point of the external hard disk harness is
portability - not much use if I have to reinstall the operating system every
time I want to put it into a different machine...


I would agree. I guess the device manufacturer's tech support guy was
correct when he said there are no XP / Vista drivers for this device because
they're not required as they already exist in XP / Vista - yes, but only if
they've been installed because the machine contains IDE devices...

What happens if you connect an IDE drive to the motherboard (assuming
there's an IDE interface on the chipset) and boot to Windows XP? Is
the IDE drive recognized and accessible?

 

[Guest]

Apparently, Microsoft has not yet completely figured out the implications of
using SATA in an IDE world.