A bit of USB trouble

[survivor78]

Hey Loungers,

I am having a bit of a perplexing, somewhat minor trouble with USB. First let me tell you how I got here: I tried to install Wubi (Ubuntu Linux without all the usual Linux hassles) on my Win 7 Home Premium HP Pavillion Elite 127-c desktop, (8 GB ram,1 TB hdd nVidia GeForce 220 video card), which went smoothly and was something I had done before on my older desktop this HP replaced. During my first run of Wubi, however, Linux updated itself and through my error I allowed GRUB (the Linux bootloader) to be installed. Upon rebooting I lost the ability to boot to either Linux OR Windows. Through some research, trial and error I was able to rebuild the Windows bootloader, but in so doing broke some things within Windows. So I did a complete factory restore with HP's Recovery Manager. The first time there were a few things that didn't go well, so I did it again. This time everything, mostly, seems to be back in order. There is one piece of software that no longer works (HP's own MediaSmart), but that is a minor issue that I will either fix or simply uninstall, or pose the question elsewhere in these fora.

This brings me to the USB issue: I have a Seagate GoFlex Desk 2 TB external hdd that has Replica software on it. Now it worked admirably when installed on the original setup before my flub with Linux. I used the Replica software (although I don't really like it and it caused some Explorer crashes). Now, however, I have had a few times when rebooting that the drive becomes "not recognized". When checking both Device Manager and Devices and Printers I see two unknown devices. I can uninstall both of these, reboot, and while the computer is off, unplug the GoFlex drive, let the boot process finish, plug in the drive and it reinstalls. This usually works fine although on a couple of occasions the installation failed. I have also had a couple of hangs during POST that seem to be related to this trouble (I reset the power button, unplug the drive, and then she'll finish the POST). Now, I also will have every ten minutes or so, the autoplay window pop up after hearing the booping of a connection seeming to be lost and then found. It seems the GoFlex drive is going to sleep, and then waking up periodically, but even when I think the drive is inactive I can still see it and open folders and such from within Windows Explorer. Right now I don't have the Replica software installed, and really don't plan on installing it; those Explorer crashes seem to be gone.

I have a number of things installed via USB which I had before as well and all worked nicely together, such as : keyboard and mouse that came with the desktop, Microsoft LifeChat and LifeCam, a USB to Serial converter for my police radio/scanner. I aslo use via USB Roxio's USB video converter and an audio USB device so I can record from virtually any device to my computer, but these are only plugged in as needed, along with my IPOD (an OLD one).

Another bit of info: when I did the second restore I inadvertently plugged in the GoFlex drive to one of the ports in the back of the machine. I have one other USB 2.0 (labeled) port in the front that I prefer to use for the drive, and I safely ejected the drive from the back port and reconnected to the one in front.

With all that, and I'm sure I've forgotten something, and I have read what I can find in the Lounge on others' USB issues, does anyone have any ideas?

[Paul T]

Could be the drive, have you tested it on another computer, or with another cable?

cheers, Paul

[survivor78]

Could be the drive, have you tested it on another computer, or with another cable?

cheers, Paul

Two things: First I have fixed the autoplay issue by installing Seagate Manager from the Seagate web site and setting power options so that the drive never goes to "sleep". Second, is the drive never did this before the second factory restore of the desktop, and this time I had the usb plugged into one of the rear ports, when I remembered I needed all 6 ports in back, and I had originally plugged the drive into the one usb 2.0 port I have in the front of the computer. I am wondering if this would have any effect, having two different usb ports that I used for the same device. Doesn't seem likely, but you never know.

Also, I am wondering if there is some sort of conflict with another usb device. When the thing fails there is always two unknown devices listed. Reboot, unplug, wait until booted up, plug in and almost every time the drive is immediately recognized and works normally. A couple of times I've tried to simply unplug, wait a bit, and then plug in the drive without rebooting and this always fails, sometimes even after I have manually uninstalled the two unknown devices from device manager. In these cases the reinstall fails, I get an error that the drive is an unrecognized device and device manager shows one unknown device.

Argh.