WinXP and removable media issue

[n0cmonkey]

I've got one of these 3039850302 in 1 adapters, and it's hooked up to this here WinXP machine. I'm using a Compact Flash card to transfer data to a system I can't have on this network.

When I go to the "Safely Remove Hardware" dialogue, it gives me the choice of 4 devices: E:, F:, G:, and H:. I had always thought G: was my 1GB USB flash drive , but that's for another time. All fall under both "USB Mass Storage Device" and "Generic STORAGE DEVICE USB Device."

The CF card shows up as E:, so I select "Generic Volume - (E" and hit "stop." In the next section, I again select the "E:" entry and hit "ok."

Windows removed the E: from the list, along with F:, G:, and H:. :shocked: So I do my thing on the C3000 and realize I need another file. I plug the CF card back in the man in 1 USB adapter, and find out that it doesn't work. I have to unplug it, plug it back in, and let Windows do its voodoo.

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: How do I convince IE _not_ to rename the files I download? file.tar.gz is fine, it doesn't have to be (and _SHOULDN'T_ be file.tar.tar).

 

[drag]

Are you allowed to install software on this computer? Why not use firefox, I don't think that renames files.
If that doesn't work there is a port of wget you can get for Windows, I beleive...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
Are you allowed to install software on this computer? Why not use firefox, I don't think that renames files.
If that doesn't work there is a port of wget you can get for Windows, I beleive...

I don't want to be responsible for any software installed on this work machine. IE works fine for most things, it just doesn't like .gz or .tgz files for some reason.

 

[Ichinisan]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I've got one of these 3039850302 in 1 adapters, and it's hooked up to this here WinXP machine. I'm using a Compact Flash card to transfer data to a system I can't have on this network.

When I go to the "Safely Remove Hardware" dialogue, it gives me the choice of 4 devices: E:, F:, G:, and H:. I had always thought G: was my 1GB USB flash drive , but that's for another time. All fall under both "USB Mass Storage Device" and "Generic STORAGE DEVICE USB Device."

The CF card shows up as E:, so I select "Generic Volume - (E" and hit "stop." In the next section, I again select the "E:" entry and hit "ok."

Windows removed the E: from the list, along with F:, G:, and H:. :shocked: So I do my thing on the C3000 and realize I need another file. I plug the CF card back in the man in 1 USB adapter, and find out that it doesn't work. I have to unplug it, plug it back in, and let Windows do its voodoo.

What am I doing wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong, and neither is Windows. Windows knows that you have a storage device. It also knows that things can go horribly wrong if the device is unplugged while data is being written to it. When you stop the device, Windows makes sure that proccesses are closed that were accessing the device and prevents new processes from accessing it. The next step is to unplug the device. When you reconnect it, Windows will recognize it and make it available for use. As long as you're not in the middle of copying/deleting files when you remove the media, it should be okay to ignore the Safe Removal tool.

 

[xtknight]

When you remove one, it has to remove the whole adapter. E,F,G,H are SD,Compact Flash, and whatever else but they are all on the same device.

If you want to be able to fast unplug the device, you have to disable buffering. This is done in the device manager and it should be in the properties of the USB device.

As for the renaming, you can try removing the mime type from Windows Explorer. Tools->Folder Options->Registered file types. Then just click anywhere on the list box and type tar with your keyboard. It should find the file type for you. You'll probably have to delete it, then create it anew again. Once you create the new tar extension, just strictly change its open function. Click advanced on it and do New... if "open" action isn't listed. Edit open option and put in whatever you want to associate the file with. For example,

"C:\Program Files\WinRAR\WinRAR.exe" "%1"

%1 is replaced (by Windows) by the file that you selected, but you still type that in the action box just as above.

So now if you were using WinRAR, it should have removed all the extra mime stuff it added and maybe fix the problem. You might have to do the same with gz extension. No guarantees that this will work.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Ichinisan

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I've got one of these 3039850302 in 1 adapters, and it's hooked up to this here WinXP machine. I'm using a Compact Flash card to transfer data to a system I can't have on this network.

When I go to the "Safely Remove Hardware" dialogue, it gives me the choice of 4 devices: E:, F:, G:, and H:. I had always thought G: was my 1GB USB flash drive , but that's for another time. All fall under both "USB Mass Storage Device" and "Generic STORAGE DEVICE USB Device."

The CF card shows up as E:, so I select "Generic Volume - (E" and hit "stop." In the next section, I again select the "E:" entry and hit "ok."

Windows removed the E: from the list, along with F:, G:, and H:. :shocked: So I do my thing on the C3000 and realize I need another file. I plug the CF card back in the man in 1 USB adapter, and find out that it doesn't work. I have to unplug it, plug it back in, and let Windows do its voodoo.

What am I doing wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong, and neither is Windows. Windows knows that you have a storage device. It also knows that things can go horribly wrong if the device is unplugged while data is being written to it. When you stop the device, Windows makes sure that proccesses are closed that were accessing the device and prevents new processes from accessing it. The next step is to unplug the device. When you reconnect it, Windows will recognize it and make it available for use. As long as you're not in the middle of copying/deleting files when you remove the media, it should be okay to ignore the Safe Removal tool.

It should be able to stop just the compact flash card, not the entire device. I can't believe that everyone that has one of these things unplugs the whole thing when they are done with it and plugs it back in when necessary. That's ridiculous and broken.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It should be able to stop just the compact flash card, not the entire device. I can't believe that everyone that has one of these things unplugs the whole thing when they are done with it and plugs it back in when necessary. That's ridiculous and broken.

What do you mean? Why do you want to "stop" the CF card? You want the drive letter to go away? I don't think it's possible in Linux either.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight
When you remove one, it has to remove the whole adapter. E,F,G,H are SD,Compact Flash, and whatever else but they are all on the same device.

If you want to be able to fast unplug the device, you have to disable buffering. This is done in the device manager and it should be in the properties of the USB device.

No, I just want the device to continue working, even though I removed one piece of media. I don't have to unplug my floppy drive every time I remove a floppy. Requiring me to do so for this compact flash adapter is wrong and broken behaviour. I have to be doing something wrong.

As for the renaming, you can try removing the mime type from Windows Explorer. Tools->Folder Options->Registered file types. Then just click anywhere on the list box and type tar with your keyboard. It should find the file type for you. You'll probably have to delete it, then create it anew again. Once you create the new tar extension, just strictly change its open function. Click advanced on it and do New... if "open" action isn't listed. Edit open option and put in whatever you want to associate the file with. For example,

"C:\Program Files\WinRAR\WinRAR.exe" "%1"

%1 is replaced (by Windows) by the file that you selected, but you still type that in the action box just as above.

So now if you were using WinRAR, it should have removed all the extra mime stuff it added and maybe fix the problem. You might have to do the same with gz extension. No guarantees that this will work.

I don't want Windows to do anything with it. I want it to _leave the name alone_. Nothing more, nothing less. It works fine with winzip (which is installed), but it won't work on other systems if it doesn't end correctly. There is _no reason_ Windows should be messing with the names of files, and I want to know how to fix this bug, not work around it.

Plus, I don't have admin privs.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It should be able to stop just the compact flash card, not the entire device. I can't believe that everyone that has one of these things unplugs the whole thing when they are done with it and plugs it back in when necessary. That's ridiculous and broken.

What do you mean? Why do you want to "stop" the CF card? You want the drive letter to go away? I don't think it's possible in Linux either.

I want to remove the card from the adapter so I can put it in another machine. To do this I stop it through the Windows interface. In the rest of the world it's be called "un mounting the drive." In Mac OS X I drag the little "UNTITLED" disk to the trash can, in OpenBSD (the other place the compact flash card is getting used) I type "umount /mnt".

In both I can still use the adapter afterwards without unplugging it and plugging it back in.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I want to remove the card from the adapter so I can put it in another machine. To do this I stop it through the Windows interface. In the rest of the world it's be called "un mounting the drive." In Mac OS X I drag the little "UNTITLED" disk to the trash can, in OpenBSD (the other place the compact flash card is getting used) I type "umount /mnt".

Well Stopping it is unmounting it, no? Did you try disabling buffering?

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't want Windows to do anything with it. I want it to _leave the name alone_. Nothing more, nothing less. It works fine with winzip (which is installed), but it won't work on other systems if it doesn't end correctly. There is _no reason_ Windows should be messing with the names of files, and I want to know how to fix this bug, not work around it.

If it's a bug, you will have to contact Microsoft. As far as I know, it is. Do you have an issue with the workaround? I don't think it will affect any functionality.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I want to remove the card from the adapter so I can put it in another machine. To do this I stop it through the Windows interface. In the rest of the world it's be called "un mounting the drive." In Mac OS X I drag the little "UNTITLED" disk to the trash can, in OpenBSD (the other place the compact flash card is getting used) I type "umount /mnt".

Well Stopping it is unmounting it, no? Did you try disabling buffering?

I guess it is, I can't tell for sure. But the device I use shouldn't disappear because I stopped the card inside.

How does a non-administrator stop buffering? Is that the correct way to do things, or is it a hacky work around?

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't want Windows to do anything with it. I want it to _leave the name alone_. Nothing more, nothing less. It works fine with winzip (which is installed), but it won't work on other systems if it doesn't end correctly. There is _no reason_ Windows should be messing with the names of files, and I want to know how to fix this bug, not work around it.

If it's a bug, you will have to contact Microsoft. As far as I know, it is.

It's been a bug for a long time, I keep expecting them to fix it, but they don't. It's kind of disappointing, and very frustrating. But not as frustrating as not being able to work a simple Compact Flash card and adapter.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
How does a non-administrator stop buffering? Is that the correct way to do things, or is it a hacky work around?

It is an inherent disability due to the technology. There is no way around it. If you leave the buffer full it can damage the data, at least that's what I've heard, and why Windows strongly advises against you just unplugging it vs. stopping it beforehand. In other words, Windows isn't at fault here. Like if data gets damaged because it travels via UDP instead of TCP...sh#t happens. However you may not want to disable the buffer because it makes transfers faster, much like UDP.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It's been a bug for a long time, I keep expecting them to fix it, but they don't. It's kind of disappointing, and very frustrating. But not as frustrating as not being able to work a simple Compact Flash card and adapter.

It won't let you in to the device manager and to the USB hardware's property page without admin? I don't think there's any other way. You can try right clicking one of the drives in Explorer then Properties and the Hardware tab. Then try properties on the hardware from there.

This is just one of the many annoyances of IE. You can install Firefox without admin, can't you? If the installer doesn't let you, just copy over the files via your flash drive. That's what I did with AIM on a friend's PC once.

It isn't just tar or gunzip files that IE doesn't like. Basically IE has a bug in it where it uses the first period to determine extension instead of the last period. Ever notice a filename is like this? It sticks out like a sore thumb when it inserts a [1] in the wrong spot like this: filename.tar[1].gz

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
How does a non-administrator stop buffering? Is that the correct way to do things, or is it a hacky work around?

It is an inherent disability due to the technology. There is no way around it. If you leave the buffer full it can damage the data, at least that's what I've heard, and why Windows strongly advises against you just unplugging it vs. stopping it beforehand. In other words, Windows isn't at fault here. Like if data gets damaged because it travels via UDP instead of TCP...sh#t happens. However you may not want to disable the buffer because it makes transfers faster, much like UDP.

Yes, Windows is at fault here. It isn't allowing me to stop the storage device without "stopping" the adapter. I WANT to stop the Compact Flash card properly, but I don't want to have to unplug the adapter and plug it back in for it to work.

You'd think this would be simple. I can't imagine everyone has to unplug an adapter and plug it back in to get their CF or SD cards working every time they want to move pictures from their cameras to their desktops.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It's been a bug for a long time, I keep expecting them to fix it, but they don't. It's kind of disappointing, and very frustrating. But not as frustrating as not being able to work a simple Compact Flash card and adapter.

It won't let you in to the device manager and to the USB hardware's property page without admin? I don't think there's any other way. You can try right clicking one of the drives in Explorer then Properties and the Hardware tab. Then try properties on the hardware from there.

Nope, can't touch that stuff without admin.

EDIT:

This is just one of the many annoyances of IE. You can install Firefox without admin, can't you? If the installer doesn't let you, just copy over the files via your flash drive. That's what I did with AIM on a friend's PC once.

This is a work machine. We don't have Fx on it, and I'm not going to install it.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Yes, Windows is at fault here. It isn't allowing me to stop the storage device without "stopping" the adapter. I WANT to stop the Compact Flash card properly, but I don't want to have to unplug the adapter and plug it back in for it to work.

You'd think this would be simple. I can't imagine everyone has to unplug an adapter and plug it back in to get their CF or SD cards working every time they want to move pictures from their cameras to their desktops.

Oh OK, I didn't understand at first. So you have to plug the device back in for it to register again, instead of just being able to mount it. Yeah Windows is a POS in that way. Windows just uninstalls the driver when you Stop it, then reinstalls the driver when you plug it in. That's what it seems like. But I'm still kind of confused. Why stop it in the first place?

Anyhow if you tear out the mime type from the .tar extension that isn't going to affect anything. As far as I know it only needs that mime-type if it opens something on the fly like a Windows media file. For everything else, it's useless, because 99% of programs use the extension, not the mime type. If you just make Windows recognize it as "All Files" instead of archive/tar or whatever, I don't think it will touch the extension. As for why IE does it in the first place, don't ask me... :Q

Let me see if I can reproduce it on this machine. It also may depend on the mime-type the server sends over. Do you have a link to a public tar.gz file that has the problem?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Oh OK, I didn't understand at first. So you have to plug the device back in for it to register again, instead of just being able to mount it.

I have a 123.2 in 1 card reader. It's got SD, CF I & II, MMC, RS-MMC, xD, MS, PRO, DUO, and PRO Duo slots. Well, 4 slots, but that's about all it's supposed to support, or something. It plugs into a computer through USB.

I brought it to work to transfer some files, since my Zaurus (with a built in CF card reader) can't get on the network here (not allowed). I plug in the card reader, insert the CF card and copy files to it. To remove it, I do my best to "stop" the "E:" drive, since I can't figure out a better way to do it.

I can then take out the CF card, put it in the Z and copy the files over. But then I find something else I want to play with, and move the CF card back to the card reader attached to the Windows machine, but the card reader no longer works until I unplug it and plug it back in.

I want to know what I'm doing wrong, so that I no longer have to unplug the card reader.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I can then take out the CF card, put it in the Z and copy the files over. But then I find something else I want to play with, and move the CF card back to the card reader attached to the Windows machine, but the card reader no longer works until I unplug it and plug it back in.

OH, so you're talking about the individual card slots. Not sure about that...

See my last edit on my last message about the IE issue.

Let me see if I can reproduce it on this machine. It also may depend on the mime-type the server sends over. Do you have a link to a public tar.gz file that has the problem?

 

[n0cmonkey]

This file shows up as .tar in the save dialogue.

 

[xtknight]

This happens to me too (only in IE, not in FF/Opera), but here's how I fixed it:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/x-tar
Extension = .tar

Change this to:
Extension = .tar;.tgz

Then it works for me (with a semicolon not a comma for separation). But you may need admin rights for that too. The mime for tgz is supposed to be application/x-compressed (not application/x-tar) according to my WinRAR installation.

If you do need admin rights for that, then try HKEY_CURRENT_USER in place of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and create the tree as necessary. I don't think you need admin to modify your own user's settings. Not sure if Windows looks in current user for that setting though, just a guess. Those bastards need to give you admin.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight
This happens to me too (only in IE, not in FF/Opera), but here's how I fixed it:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/x-tar
Extension = .tar

Change this to:
Extension = .tar;.tgz

Then it works for me (with a semicolon not a comma for separation). But you may need admin rights for that too. The mime for tgz is supposed to be application/x-compressed (not application/x-tar) according to my WinRAR installation.

If you do need admin rights for that, then try HKEY_CURRENT_USER in place of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and create the tree as necessary. I don't think you need admin to modify your own settings. Not sure if Windows looks in current user for that setting though, just a guess.

Too much work for so little benefit. I don't modify registries, I'm a pussy.

 

[xtknight]

lol all you have to do is change a key. It's not going to burn your building down.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight
lol all you have to do is change a key. It's not going to burn your building down.

Will this propogate to all of the machines on the domain, or just this one?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: xtknight
lol all you have to do is change a key. It's not going to burn your building down.

Will this propogate to all of the machines on the domain, or just this one?

Just that one, unless you use File-->connect to network registry and change someone else's. The registry hives are only locally stored. As far as I know at least. Changing that key will certainly not harm anyone's PC though.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: xtknight
lol all you have to do is change a key. It's not going to burn your building down.

Will this propogate to all of the machines on the domain, or just this one?

Just that one, unless you use File-->connect to network registry and change someone else's. The registry hives are only locally stored. As far as I know at least. Changing that key will certainly not harm anyone's PC though.

Isn't this one of those things a domain is supposed to solve?

I'm whiney today. And picky.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Isn't this one of those things a domain is supposed to solve?

I'm whiney today. And picky.

Not the registry I don't think. I mean you can install someone on your machine and it won't end up on someone else's will it? I don't know how the domain works...

The worst it's going to do to anyone else's machine is add 4 bytes to their registry hive and not affect anything else. Worst case scenario you're saving them a headache.

Edit: not install someone, install something.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Isn't this one of those things a domain is supposed to solve?

I'm whiney today. And picky.

Not the registry I don't think. I mean you can install someone on your machine and it won't end up on someone else's will it? I don't know how the domain works...

Edit: not install someone, install something.

Not sure, probably not. But the roaming profiles are supposed to (and generally do) keep my settings the same no matter which machine on the domain I log into. The registry is that god awful abortion of an idea that holds the settings... I figured it would carry over to other machines.