External Hard Drive (USB MassStorage Device missing?)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lincoln 6 Echo
  • Start date Start date
L

Lincoln 6 Echo

Hi,

I am trying to connect my Western Digital external hard drive over USB port
and it seems vista cannot find the Usb MassStorage Device Driver :(

Any thoughts? Even scanning my other partition with XP is not of use (it
says file not found).

I thought MS would include at least these trivial drivers???

Petar
 
When vista asks you for the drivers, try specifying C:\Windows (or where you
installed vista) with the subfolders option enabled.

Marco
 
Same, here. One of my two Maxtor external drives, which originally worked
fine is now listed as "local drive" and can't be accessed.
 
I had a similar problem with my Onetouch Drive - ie the OS saw the device but
wouldn't allocate a drive letter. I eventually found it was because I had a
password security option set on drive - so had to install maxtor secuirty
prog on a system with XP, attached the maxtor drive and turned off security.
Vista then saw the drive normally - I haven't had the nerve to switch the
password option back on!
 
I am having the same problem, It worked fine on XP, and even on Vista using
my laptop, but it cannot find any drivers (it shouldn't need any anyway) on
Vista Ultimate on my desktop. This is a serious issue, and either Microsoft
or Western Digital needs to fix it soon, because this is frankly absurd, and
I'm frustrated.

I've tried contacting Western Digital, and they have not responded.
 
I have a similar problem with a NEW notebook Acer TM8215 wlmi (Vista
Ultimate) and all sort of usb devices. Hard disk or pen drives work randomly
(also if they are usually shown in the device manager). Often Win searchs for
the driver without being able to install it. The system is not able to remove
them properly (the light keeps on flashing).
There are a lot of threads about Vista and usb problems. The Microsoft patch
did not help. Some times the devices work but with a lot of errors. I can
not believe it (Vista is very expensive). I do not think my problem is
hardware related. Any solutions?
 
I fixed the issue by installing updated motherboard drivers, and I could find
and use the drive, then I restarted and got a BSOD (blue screen of death) and
perpetual re-starting before Vista even started.

I did a repair install, then restarted and the same thing happened. I got
sick of it, and formatted and re-installed XP. I'm done with Vista for now,
until Nvidia releases some finalized drivers for my 8800 GTX, and motherboard
(nForce 680i). I'm really frustrated with Nvidia and Creative over driver
issues with Vista, it's really absurd.
 
I am having the same trouble with my WD external hard drive. It works great
on my XP desktop. I recently bought a new laptop with Vista. I had to install
drivers and updates several times for it to finally see my 1GB thumb drive.
Then after all I had to manually direct the computer to the driver for the
thumb drive. Every once in awhile it will see my external hard drive but more
times than not it won't. Who knows if my Vista machine will see either my
thumb drive or my WD drive next time I start it up.
If anyone has any ideas on how to deal with this issue please let me know.
 
jw93 said:
I am having the same trouble with my WD external hard drive. It works great
on my XP desktop. I recently bought a new laptop with Vista. I had to install
drivers and updates several times for it to finally see my 1GB thumb drive.
Then after all I had to manually direct the computer to the driver for the
thumb drive...
Click to expand...

Well, you may have more than one problem. The problem of not finding
USB drivers sounds like your C:\windows\inf\INFCACHE.1 is corrupted and
needs to be deleted. (You will need to edit its file permissions to
give Full Control to the Users group before you can delete it.)

If you are also seeing "...One of the devices attached to this computer
has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it..." then the fix
I gave you above may not work, but I'd like to know.
 
I deleted the INFCACHE.1 file and that didn't help. I don't want to do any
drastic measures because it is reading my thumb drive and my printer,
keyboard and mouse just fine. With my WD external hard drive I am still
getting the window that says "...One of the devices attached to this computer
has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it..." I am beyond knowing
what to do. I tried going to the store where I bought the ext. hard drive and
they don't know anything about the troubles Vista is having with reading USB
devices. Thanks for you response and I really hope someone comes up with
something soon.
 
has anyone gotten a fix for this yet? i'm having the same frustrating
problem with vista and an external hard drive enclosure going thru a usb 2
port. it actually worked the very first time then crashed. after rebooting
nothing. first it says can't find the usb drivers then when i point it to
the system directory it says loading but still fails, and the enclosure shows
as not working in the device manager. not sure how to get this to work but
i'm fairly certain it's a vista specific problem as i didn't have this
problem with xp. any ideas would be appreciated. thanks.
 
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

It's never going to see it until you go buy the Ultimate edition.

The so called cheaper editions, (Home Premium, etc.) won't recognize a
dynamic drive.

Sure, their might not be anything in the documentation, or other usual
information sources that will tell you this, (before you make your purchase).
It's not only a fact, but a pretty well kept secret as evidenced by the fact
that I've posted this information already and MS pulled it off the board.

So, unless you're ready to drop some more bucks, you're SOL gringo.

But hey, this is America, the greatest country in the world, for making a
fast, dishonest buck (that is).

It's called conservitive free enterprize and If you don't like it, you can
leave and go to Iraq, or Cuba.

Brought to you by . . . The Republicans and yes the beloved party of the
working people . . . The lay me down and bend me over DEMOCRATS.
 
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