[Solved] My XP laptop has stopped recognising/working - external hard-drives

[HowlCat]

Hi,

 

I have an ageing Dell laptop running Windows XP. As it has a fairly small (40GB) internal IDE hard-drive that is pretty full I regularly use a couple of external drives for non-essential stuff like music, photos, videos etc. A few days ago I switched on one the external drives and nothing happened! I usually access my external drives by going into My Computer and clicking on it there but the icon simply didn't appear. At first I thought it was a problem with the drive itself, but when I tried another drive the same thing happened. So far, I've tried 2 mains-powered external drives, 2 portable drives and several USB flash-drives and I can't access any of them.

 

I have since tested most of my external memory devices on a relative's laptop/notebook and they work just fine, so it seems to be a problem with the USB ports and/or Window XP missing drivers? If I go into Device Manager the connected HDDs appear okay and it states that everything is working normally. Also, I have checked XP's Disc Management program and they show up in there too, but as unformatted drives, hence why the no-show in My Computer. When I plug in a USB flash-drive it does show up in My Computer, but when I try to access it I get a message saying the drive isn't formatted. But, as I have already mentioned, I have tested the drives on another computer and they all still work fine. Help!

 

 

The funny thing is, my wireless mouse, that uses a USB dongle, is still functioning perfectly, as is my digital camera/SD card when connected via USB. So it seems to be a problem specifically with external HDDs and memory sticks.

 

Any assistance with this perplexing issue would be greatly appreciated!

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

Firstly - create a Restore Point ( just in case ).

Start > Run ...typ in MSCONFIG ..............ENTER

Click on "Launch System Restore" and click on "Create a Restore Point".

 

You will be prompted to give it a name - call it "pre USB" or similar.

===============

 

Next - Open Notebook and copy and paste this text in blue:

 

REGEDIT4

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment]

 

"DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES"="1"

 

Click on File > Save As

Save it to the Desktop as RegFix.reg

(It may just show as "RegFix" )

 

Click on this and say "yes" to the pop-up re. Merging into Registry

 

This will ensure that all non-present devices that have drivers installed are shown in Device Manager

=================

Make sure you have no USB devices connected.

 

Start > Run ....type in .....devmgmt.msc.....OK

Click on View ( toolbar ) > Show hidden devices.

 

Click the + next to "Storage Volumes"

Right click on each of the "Generic Volume" and "Uninstall"

Do this for each of the listed volumes.

 

This will uninstall the drivers.

Ignore any requests to reboot - complete the uninstall first.

 

Reboot your machine twice.

===============

 

Now reconnect one of the external drives.

Windows should recognise it as "New Hardware" and re-install the drivers.

 

(adapted from JohnWill's post)

[HowlCat]

Hi KenB, many thanks for your response. I tried the method you described but unfortunately it didn't correct the problem. There were 3 entries for "generic volume" in Device Manager/Storage volume. I uninstalled the first 2 without a problem and they promptly disappeared from the list. However, on trying to uninstall the last one it kept throwing up the warning that goes something like, "in order the complete the changes you need to restart the system. Do you want to restart now?" If I click "no" the last generic volume entry remains where it is. I tried several times but it seems to remain unless I click "yes" to restart.

 

So then I did indeed click "yes" to restart, then restarted again when I received the message prompt on the Desktop. Have tried this several times but no joy I'm afraid. Looking in Device Manager again, the 3 "generic volumes" remain listed there, although I don't know whether they've just been reinstalled automatically. Anyway, thanks again for the suggestion.

[KenB]

Create another rrestore point.

 

Go back to Device Manager. Start > devmgmt.msc

 

Click the + next to Disk Drives

Make a note of the drive that is showing - this is your Hard Drive.

 

Now click on View > Show hidden devices

Everything that you have used via the USB ports that is memory linked is here.

 

Do the same again - right click > uninstall

 

Do Not uninstall the Hard Drive drivers that you made a note of - there is no need.

 

The system will reinstall the drivers next time you plug the devices in.

[HowlCat]

I have just tried this also. I took note of my internal HDD number but when I select 'show hidden devices' no more drives show up in Device Manager/Disk Drives, still only my internal HDD. So anyway, I bit the bullet and decided to plug in one of my older USB drives (with nothing much on) and then uninstalled that when it showed up in Disk Drives, then restarted, but, you guessed it, still nothing happening I'm afraid :(

[HowlCat]

No need. Turns out it was a nasty bit of rootkit malware causing all the trouble. I downloaded and ran a free program called TDSSkiller from Kaspersky and that did the trick, all USB drives are now working fine. Many thanks for your help and support!

[KenB]

Hi

 

I removed my post re. "New Thread" - must be old age catching up on me :)

 

Good to hear that you have solved your problem.

If you need to - one of our security experts could take a look at your system to make sure that there are no other malware problems lurking.

Just post in the Malware Removal forum and provide a link back to this thread.