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Portable USB Harddrive won't install on vista! This one is a challenge!

S

Steven T

Member
I have a seagate 100GB USB drive. There are no drivers for it on the seagate site. It should just install automatically. When i plug it in vista opens a "locate driver screen". There are no drivers to locate though! It is plug and play and windows won't even recognize it as a drive. In device manager it just keeps showing up as unknown USB device. Can anyone help?
 
Originally posted by: Steven T
PLEASE SOMEONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

first, chill out. people dont like to help the impatient, or the obnoxious
second, google the problem
third, email seagate if its *that* big of a deal for you.
 
USB storage devices (unless they have some extra features beyond just being a storage device) don't need drivers. If Vista is asking for drivers it's because either you don't have drivers for your chipset/USB controller, or it is not configured properly.
 
Im sure you are correct. I thank you for the reply. I would not have thought of that. I went to Asus site and I cannot fine chipset drivers for my p5n-e sli. My only options are...

P5N-E SLI


BIOS

BIOS-Utilities

AUDIO

LAN

RAID

Utilities

Manual

Also, how do you configure it properly? I think this may be responsible for why I idle at 25-30% usage with 3 gigs RAM too!
 
Originally posted by: xSauronx
Originally posted by: Steven T
PLEASE SOMEONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

first, chill out. people dont like to help the impatient, or the obnoxious
second, google the problem
third, email seagate if its *that* big of a deal for you.
Click to expand...

I used google before I came here. Nobody answered for 24 hours, my help cry got me some attention. Sorry, If you dont want to help then dont reply. Dont read the thread all together. I don't know what your problem is. Are you like the internet forum Nazi or something? lol

And yes, being able to use my external storage drive IS a big deal. I use it VERY frequently between computers.
 
If Windows isn't loading the USB storage driver then the device is likely providing the wrong ID for itself or the USB controller is corrupting it before Windows sees it. Do you try any other USB ports? Can you try the drive in another machine to make sure the drive itself isn't to blame?
 
Yes, I get the Trangle exlamation mark thing for it listed as USB storage device under universal serial bus controllers.

It's not just my USB drive that is to blame. It's working. I have a little pop in flash card adapter that wont work either. Both of these work fine when booting into XP mode or on my other computers that have XP.
 
Sounds like it is the chipset drivers then if no USB devices are working. On Asus site, when you get to the page where you see BIOS, BIOS-Utilities, etc. there is a tab at the top labeled Drivers. Click on that, then search on the page for "chip"

There are numerous chipset drivers for Vista, some beta. One I see is:

Beta Version 1.12 2006/12/26 update
OS Vista 32bit / Vista 64bit
Description Nvidia Chipset Driver Package V1.12 for32& 64bit Windows Vista.(Vista beta drivers are for testing on.)
File Size 44.13 (MBytes)
 
I had similar experience with an iRiver MP3 player. For Windows it should be just an external USB drive, no drivers.

Did you try other USB ports on your computer? Plug into one USB port, asks for drivers and doesn't work. Plug into another USB port, recognized immediately and all's well.
 
Originally posted by: JesseKnows
I had similar experience with an iRiver MP3 player. For Windows it should be just an external USB drive, no drivers.

Did you try other USB ports on your computer? Plug into one USB port, asks for drivers and doesn't work. Plug into another USB port, recognized immediately and all's well.
Click to expand...

I wish it were that simple in my case 🙁
 
I keep seeing hints of this problem with various USB drives in Vista. It's hard to imagine how Vista could have problems reading ANY standard USB drive. XP had near-zero issues with USB storage devices. But, based on the threads on AnandTech Forums, it seems like there is some kind of issue with certain USB drives or controllers or ???? in Vista.
 
I have had a problem with my western digital 250 GB mybook external drive in Vista, on 2 different computers.

If i leave the drive plugged in and turn on/reboot the computer, it hangs on the screen where the vista windows logo is (where it plays the startup music) for quite a bit before it eventually boots into my desktop.

Also, if I have the computer already booted up and I plug in the USB drive, it takes a minute or two for it to show up so that I can access it.

This is probably the only problem I have with Vista, but not a huge one..
 
I guess out of all my USB devices I have 3 that wont work with vista.

My pop in usb flash card adapter/reader
My external USB seagate drive
And one of my midi controllers.
 
i found that some toshiba usb drives have the same problem. The trouble is they create a virtual drive on the system that is recognised as an unwritable USB drive then you need to enter a password to access the drive Tosh call it SECURE. Because the system constantly looks for a driver to use this ficticious drive it dosn't initialise and mount.
 
i dunno.. i never ended up getting it working. now another wierd thing happened. My usb keyboard wont work on my vista. If I boot to xp and then back to vista its fine. But after a while it starts asking me for drivers and stops working!!!!!!!!!!!!! F U C K VISTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
i dunno.. i never ended up getting it working. now another wierd thing happened. My usb keyboard wont work on my vista. If I boot to xp and then back to vista its fine. But after a while it starts asking me for drivers and stops working!!!!!!!!!!!!! F U C K VISTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Considering that you're the only person having any issues like this, I'd guess Vista isn't the issue here...
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
i dunno.. i never ended up getting it working. now another wierd thing happened. My usb keyboard wont work on my vista. If I boot to xp and then back to vista its fine. But after a while it starts asking me for drivers and stops working!!!!!!!!!!!!! F U C K VISTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Considering that you're the only person having any issues like this, I'd guess Vista isn't the issue here...
Click to expand...

I agree, Vista at least can't be the sole problem. I'm running Vista Ultimate on an "ancient" nforce 3 mobo and everything worked upon installation. That includes an external hdd, creative zen vision:w, sandisk sansa, sandisk cf card reader, epson printer, and mx1000 laser mouse. None of these devices ever had an issue from day one.

The nice thing is you get free warranty calls to Microsoft (I think it's two free tech support issues for free), so before going ballistic on Vista, give Microsoft a call and see if they can help. Hopefully you've already installed all the important/recommended updates for Vista?
 
Okay well the point is "I AM" experiencing this problem and I need to solve it. Can anyone contribute something helpful? 🙁

every time I want to pull files to or from my USB drive I have to boot into windows XP and its REALLY annoying.
 
I seem to have trouble with an external USB hard drive too, so I'll piggyback my problem here...

I recently purchased a 300+ GB drive (a WDC WD32 00BB-00KEA0, for what it's worth...). The hard drive isn't a problem when it's running off one of the two USB 1.1 ports on the T23 ThinkPad with Vista Ultimate (a post-beta near-RTM build 5840). That's the build that Microsoft passed out free--along with a free unrestricted Office Professional 2007--for attending its market launch in Detroit three months ago.

Not wanting to have the drive run on USB 1.1, I picked up an EOL Adaptec AUA-1422 (2 ports each of Firewire and USB 2) two days ago and attached it to the empty CardBus slot. Then, I ran the external drive off one of the two available USB 2 ports and attached a Belkin F5U237 7-port hub to the other. The devices off the hub work OK, except for an older Chic optical mouse. That wasn't much of a problem because I had an unused Logitech LX 500 wireless keyboard/mouse that I just put into its initial service. After a while with Driver Detective, I got it to work OK.

The rub is that Computer Management in Vista doesn't recognize the previously formatted 40 GB partition, but instead the entire 295 GB drive--as an unknown drive (no drive letter obviously--which previously was 'H').

So, how do I get the hard drive recognized when running as USB 2.0? The result is the same if the 1422 is used with both ports or with the hard drive running alone without the 7-port hub.

Gary

 
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