SP3 not assigning drive letters to external drive, Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service stuck in 'Starting'

Wednesday, May 07, 2008 2:38 PM

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I've tried installing SP3 3 times and every time had this same problem:

My Western Digital MyBook external drive, connected via firewire, is not assigned a drive letter and cannot be accessed. If I double click the icon in the system tray that shows what USB/firewire devices are connected, the device is listed.

When I try to go to Disk Management in Computer Management, the Disk Management snap-in never loads. I see in Services that the 'Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service' is stuck in the 'Starting' state.

The drive was accessible on SP2, and after uninstalling SP3 or reverting back to an SP2 DriveImage XML backup, the drive is acessible again.

I reproduced this problem at least three times, and was never able to solve it without going back to SP2 (which solved it every time).

Any suggestions how to diagnose/solve this problem is appreciated.
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008 2:53 PM

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I forgot to mention that my latest attempt to install SP3 was via Windows Update in IE. The first couple times was from the SP3 disk image downloaded via MSDN.
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008 4:49 PM

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Have you checked the event viewer logs? You can find them by following the instructions below:
1) start->run
2) type "eventvwr.msc" and press enter
3) In the left pane, select "system"
4) Can you verify if you have any errors in the right pane?

As I see, there are two problems here-in.

1) Disk management service is hung

2) Drive letter assignment is not happening for the external harddrive.

Have you seen both the problems every time you installed xp sp3?

Also have you tried restarting the machine? Does the problem persist even after reboot?

If yes, can you try following and revert back if the problem still persists:
1) Remove the external harddisk from the machine.
2) Restart the machine

3) start->run
4) type compmgmt.msc and press enter

5) in the left pane select storage->disk management
4) If it works well, try connecting the external harddrive
5) See if it appears in the disk management snap-in
6) If it doesnt, try doing rescan from disk management snap-in
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008 6:03 PM

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Thanks for suggestions. I have already uninstalled SP3 and are back to SP2, which resolved the problem.

I did check the event logs, and did not see anything that looked related to the disk. I could re-install SP3 when I get home (I'm at work now, and the issue is on my home machine) and look again.

I have indeed seen this problem every time I installed SP3, and it was resolved every time I went back to SP2. The problem does persist after reboot, and in fact, I think the first manifestation of this problem the 1st time I installed SP3 was that the computer would not complete booting when I had the external drive attached. It would stay at the Windows "splash screen" with the progress bar going, forever. The progress bar never stopped, so it was not completely hung, but it would never boot. Once I waited several hours, and it never came up. Once I unplugged the external drive, it booted fine.

I can try your last suggestion, starting disk management after reboot without the drive attached, when I get home.

Thanks again for your help.
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008 8:21 PM

Revtim wrote:

...in fact, I think the first manifestation of this problem the 1st time I installed SP3 was that the computer would not complete booting when I had the external drive attached. It would stay at the Windows "splash screen" with the progress bar going, forever. The progress bar never stopped, so it was not completely hung, but it would never boot. Once I waited several hours, and it never came up. Once I unplugged the external drive, it booted fine.

Did you mean to say that everytime when you try to install XP SP3 with external harddrive attached (connected via firewire), you couldnt complete installation because of this issue and hence you installed SP3 after removing the harddisk and you connected the external harddisk thereafter?

Or is it that your XP SP3 installation was completed and there-after system couldnt boot because of the connected external harddrive. And you needed to remove that harddrive and then only system was able to boot.

Thursday, May 08, 2008 12:39 AM

I meant that XP SP3 installation completed, and afterwards the system couldn't boot with the external drive connected. Sorry I wasn't more clear.

Thursday, May 08, 2008 1:36 AM

Pankaj Madhukar [msfte] wrote:

Have you checked the event viewer logs? You can find them by following the instructions below:
1) start->run
2) type "eventvwr.msc" and press enter
3) In the left pane, select "system"
4) Can you verify if you have any errors in the right pane?

As I see, there are two problems here-in.

1) Disk management service is hung

2) Drive letter assignment is not happening for the external harddrive.

Have you seen both the problems every time you installed xp sp3?

Also have you tried restarting the machine? Does the problem persist even after reboot?

If yes, can you try following and revert back if the problem still persists:
1) Remove the external harddisk from the machine.
2) Restart the machine

3) start->run
4) type compmgmt.msc and press enter

5) in the left pane select storage->disk management
4) If it works well, try connecting the external harddrive
5) See if it appears in the disk management snap-in
6) If it doesnt, try doing rescan from disk management snap-in

I installed SP3 again, and tried your suggestions.

Here's what I did, and the results:
1) Unplugged external drive
2) Installed SP3, no errors, reboot.
3) Went to Computer Management, then Disk Management. The snap-in loaded fine.
4) Connected external drive via firewire.
5) Everything worked fine: the drive was automatically assigned a letter, and was accessible. The Disk Management snap-in saw the disk with no problem. This was the first time I was able to access the drive in SP3.
6) With the drive still connected, I rebooted.
7) The computer failed to boot like before, where it was stuck on the Windows splash screen and the progress bar. Also like before, the progress bar continued to move (it was not locked up / hung)
8) I unplugged the external drive, rebooted, pc came up fine.
9) I re-attached the external drive (did NOT load Computer Management or Disk Management), and it was connected
to drive autmoatically and accessible again.
10) rebooted again with external drive attached, and it failed to boot again.
11) Disconnected drive, rebooted, and PC came up fine.
12) checked event log, and the only error I could see as this in the System Log, which I do not think is related:

The Bluetooth Port Client Driver service failed to start due to the following error:

The system cannot find the file specified.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp

I have a bluetooth dongle attached to the computer, but I do not think it is related to this problem.

Now, the only remaining problem is that I cannot boot with the external drive connected.

Thanks,
Tim

Thursday, May 08, 2008 12:28 PM

Same issue here, with an external firewire Seagate Freeagent Pro (switched on) and 3 daisy chained Western Digital Media Center (switched off) SP3 fails to boot (stuck on the Windows splash screen and the progress bar. The progress bar continues to move).

With all external hard drives switched on SP3 boots without any issue. All drives are recognized.

It seems that it´s a problem with some kind of WD external harddrives. There is no issue with SP2.

Thanks,
Krispu

Friday, May 09, 2008 1:05 PM

Pankaj, do you have any more suggestions?

Saturday, May 10, 2008 12:01 PM

Can you please send us some information/files from your computer.

1) c:\windows\svcpack.log

2) All files under c:\windows\debug\setup

The above information would help us in understanding the issue better.

You can send these files at pankaj.madhukar_AT_microsoft dot com

Saturday, May 10, 2008 5:09 PM

Done. Thanks again for the help.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 2:50 AM

I'd like to say that I too am having the same problem! I have a Western Digital My Book Studio (500Gb), it is connected via firewire 400 to my laptop. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8200, 1.8GHz P4 with 512 Mb ram. However the computer has the Dell OEM edition of Windows XP, and not a retail edition. I'm not sure it if that makes a difference? Neither of the previous contributors have mentioned this.

Nevertheless, the issue is EXACTLY the same as Revtim and Krispu! The external HD was working fine with SP2, after upgrading to SP3 the computer runs normally. But when the Ext HD is connected and the computer booted, then the system hands on the windows xp logo. However, starting the computer with the Ext HD disconnected allows the system to boot normally. Then the HD can be connected, and it will be detected promptly and automatically mounted to the correct drive letter.

If either one of you (or Pankaj) manages to solve this problem could you PLEASE post the solution to this thread. I suspect there are many more people suffering the same problem.

Thanks you

Naveed

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 12:30 AM

Pankaj, was there any info of value in those files? Did you get the files OK?

Thanks,
Revtim

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 6:58 PM

I am having the same exact problem. (Win XP SP3)

In device manager all seems ok.No Errors or Warnings.

When i plug in my MyBook Premium II via firewire 800 the "Connection Bell" rings,but NO drive letter.

When i plug the same disk via USB all ok.

One more thing.When i open the WD Raid Management for the disk (when pluged via firewire) ,the disk is shown but with 0 (zero) GB capacity.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:16 PM

Did you use this drive with SP2 successfully?

Stavros Petridis wrote:

I am having the same exact problem. (Win XP SP3)

In device manager all seems ok.No Errors or Warnings.

When i plug in my MyBook Premium II via firewire 800 the "Connection Bell" rings,but NO drive letter.

When i plug the same disk via USB all ok.

One more thing.When i open the WD Raid Management for the disk (when pluged via firewire) ,the disk is shown but with 0 (zero) GB capacity.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:22 PM

I bought the disk after the installation of SP3.Sorry

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:04 PM

I'm experiencing the same problem. I have two Acomdata firewire drives that were working just wonderfully before the SP3 install. After SP3 installed, the system stopped booting at the Windows splash screen. I had to hard restart the machine. The machine stopped again at the splash screen. I turned off the firewire drives and started the machine again. Magically, the machine booted fine. Though there was a strange issue where IE thought I had no Internet connection while all other browsers, email (Thunderbird), and Internet related programs worked just fine. A second boot fixed that (dunno why).

I turned on the firewire drives and Explorer stopped responding. I turned off the drives and the system remained hung.

I rebooted with the drives off and all was good again.

I removed/uninstalled the 1394 drivers from within Device Manager, restarted the machine with the drives off, and Windows rediscovered the 1394 controller and reinstalled the drivers. I turned on the drives. Explorer found them and promptly stopped responding as soon as I accessed one of the drives.

I removed/uninstalled the 1394 drivers again. Restarted the machine with the drives on this time. The machine booted fine, found the 1394 controller, installed the drivers, and stopped responding as soon as Explorer tried to access them.

It seems as if the problem is with the 1394 bus and doesn't happen until the bus is activated and drive numbers need to be assigned.

I don't have a firewire scanner or camera to attach to see if they cause the same problem, but I would be interested to see any responses about that.

I've looked for updated drivers, but haven't found any yet. Don't know if there are any as the ones I have are from Microsoft.

Thursday, May 15, 2008 10:01 PM

I've got a SilverTouch external drive (supports FireWire & USB 2.0) containing a Seagate ST3500630A hard disk (500Gb).
Nothing new to say: I use of course the FW connection, it has worked perfectly under SP2; now the boot freezes at the Windows splash screen.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 4:50 PM

Hi all,

I've read in other threads (like XP SP3 fails to boot normaly when external firewire disk is connected during boot) that MS was aware of it and that they "are working on a fix" (posted by dbhans 17 May 2008, 6:33 AM UTC).

If you want to install SP3, the best solution for the moment is stopping using the FireWire interface (just unplug the cable) and replacing it with the USB 2.0 interface/cable, if you have both with you external hard drive... And wait until MS release a fix for FireWire ;-)

Maybe Revtim or Pankaj have some news about it? Is a fix already available? Thx!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 5:34 PM

Unfortunately, I have no news. Thanks for linking to the other thread.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:25 AM

I think This is definitely a Microsoft sp3 problem.

I have 2 Identical (hardware) computers. One which had the WD Firewire my book attached and turned on all the time sp3 was installed has no problems re booting. The other which had the WD drive off during the sp3 installation will not reboot if it is later on at the time of the boot. Once xp up and running WD drive can be attached as normal but must be off for boot ups. Uninstalling and re installing sp3 with it on doesn't help still won't re boot with it on.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:54 AM

Hi, does anyone know if this problem affects other Firewire devices as well as external drives? The reason I ask is that we have two PCs which have Kodak high performance scanners attached via Firewire and I don't wan't to install SP3 on these machines if it is going to cause problems.

Thanks

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:43 PM

I can't say, but you almost certainly will be able to simply uninstall SP3 afterwards if it causes you problems. Make some kind of backup beforehand and you can be doubly protected (I use DriveImage XML).

Maurice_Reed wrote:

Thanks

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 4:31 PM

No, it’s not just external FireWire hard drives. This XP SP3 update “hang on re-boot problem” seems to be related to external FireWire devices in general. I tried three times to apply SP3 to my second system after having no problems whatsoever in applying SP3 to my first system. The second system would always hang on re-boot at a screen that said "please wait". Waiting didn't help. It was stuck there. Pressing reset would always re-boot me to a screen where I could at least go into Safe Mode and from there I could do a System Restore to go back to SP2.

These two systems were basically identical. Both were Asus MB's (P4C800-E Deluxe & P4P800-E Deluxe) with the latest BIOS. Both had 1GB of RAM. Both had Intel P4 Northwood CPU's (2.8GHz & 3.4GHz). Both had Intel chipsets (875P & 865PE). Both had Seagate SATA HD's on Intel 82801EB storage controllers. Both had VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controllers. And, finally, the software on both systems was 90% identical and updated to the latest versions - including the two existing XP Home SP2 installations. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why these two systems should react so differently to the SP3 update.

It just seemed like SP3 was trying to connect with something at re-boot on the second system and failing every time. Finally, it dawned on me. There WAS one major difference between the two systems. I had an external Plextor PX-740UF DVD writer connected via FireWire on the second system. Sure enough, I disconnected the PX-740UF, started the SP3 update again, it finished without a hitch and re-booted to the desktop with no problems at all. I hot connected the FireWire PX-740UF, it was recognized and it seemed all was well again.

Wrong! I decided to try a soft re-boot with the external FireWire drive still attached and the system hung on a blank screen. I disconnected the external FireWire drive, soft re-booted again and it booted to the desktop just fine.

I then decided to try the PX-740UF to my first system – the one where the SP3 update had (apparently) gone so well. Connected the drive to the external FireWire port, booted up and – it hung on boot, just like the other system!

This drive worked just fine on FireWire on both systems for years with XP SP2. Unfortunately, I don’t have the option of connecting this drive via USB, since it is much slower and produces poor quality burns on USB whereas I can (could) burn at 16X with excellent quality on FireWire under XP SP2.

Apparently, Microsnot broke something in FireWire with SP3. It would be interesting to find out if most of the people having problems have VIA IEEE1394 host controllers. Maybe that would tell us something (or not).

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:25 PM

Thanks for the info pcarey. It appears I have a 'Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller' on my motherboard, so I guess the problem is not limited to the VIA.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:54 PM

Mine is a Texas host controller and Award MB.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 8:32 PM

Thanks to all of you for these posts. I have a dental office client with 11 Dell PCs that was having “hang on re-boot problem” on 5 of them with Service Pack 2 at different times. The systems are peer to peer networked with a "server system" having two external backup drives rotated daily. At about 7/14/2007 Dell support had us restore the first system and that resolved it, only to have another system do the same thing about a week later. I searched all over the Internet and did not find anyone with the same exact issue. After multiple restarts, something finally cleared and the system started again? I did the same restarts on the third system a couple weeks later and it worked. That got me to looking more at software than hardware. I compared the systems and found they were pretty much the same with only subtle differences in users screen save times etc. While researching this I found a post about starting in safe mode with command prompt to access the contents of the the C:\winodws\prefetch folder. The prefetch folder files are not deleted after some programs are uninstalled. I backed up the prefetch folder and removed the contents. The systems then start fine after rebooting. There are also some large NT files in the root directory that will not delete until Windows restarts correctly and removes them automatically. Does this add to the clues?

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 9:30 PM

A bit on the XP Prefetch Folder before you mess with it too much - http://members.rushmore.com/~jsky/id14.html

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:16 PM

Thanks, this line "The prefetcher works to take all the loading to the windows boot logo stage to make everything else that requires your interaction faster." may be the clue that I needed. The large files are in the root folder and may not be listed in the prefetch layout.ini file. I am going to the office ASAP to check out the several backups that I have on hand there.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 5:39 AM

Anyone have any updates about this problem?

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:07 PM

I contacted MS Tech Support, and Case ID SRX1067554006 was opened against this issue. No solution yet, but the tech assigned to the case has been suggesting tests. So far no breakthroughs, but I'll update this thread if anything useful comes up.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:37 PM

My personal belief is that SP3 is trying to check any connected external IEEE1394 devices, regardless of type, for bootable files. It may be that if your MB BIOS supports booting from external FireWire devices, you may not experience any problems. SP3 may just check and, not finding any bootable files, moves on with the boot sequence. However, if it your MB BIOS does not support booting from external IEEE1394 devices, SP3 gets confused and just hangs.

Just my current uneducated theory. This shouldn't be difficult for Microsnot to fix - if they have any interest in fixing it, that is.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:51 PM

pcarey wrote:

My personal belief is that SP3 is trying to check any connected external IEEE1394 devices, regardless of type, for bootable files.

Checks for bootable disks are made by the BIOS, long before Windows is ever loaded. By the time Windows has loaded, it is already committed to continue loading from the device it booted from.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008 2:24 PM

Can you please share the following information with me at ArunT [AT] Microsoft [Dot] Com. This will help us dig this issue a step further.

1. At what point does the system gets hang while booting?

2. Which host controller is being used? Please follow the following steps to get the answer:

a. Press ‘Windows + r’ -> devmgmt.msc.

b. Look for an entry of 1394 Host controller in the device management and expand it.

c. Right Click on the Host Controller and select properties.

d. Go to the details tab and select ‘Device Instance Id’ from the drop down list, if not selected by default.

e. Copy the complete string that appears and share it with us.

3. Which BIOS are is present on the system and of what version?

Please follow the following steps (the UI might be different for different systems so it might not be in sync with your machine)

i. Boot the system and go to the BIOS mode by pressing f10, f8 or delete keys (different in different systems)

ii. Go to the system information and note the BIOS name, version and company name information and share it with us.

4. What is the order of the boot device in the BIOS and what devices are connected corresponding to them?

5. What are the other 1394 devices attached to their system?

6. Does the bug repro without WD 1394 HDD but with other 1394 device attached?

Thanks

Arun

Tuesday, June 03, 2008 2:52 PM

As soon as the windows flag/logo picture appears with the moving dots/dashes beneath the logo the dots just keep moving forever.

Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_8024&SUBSYS_10001458&REV_00\4&1ADD88A5&0&30F0

gigabyte mb GA-P35-DS4 (rev. 2.0) BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. F11, 02/01/2008

order is hard drive only.

no other 1394 device or usb.

only have 1 1394 device so cannot test.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008 9:23 PM

1.- As soon as the windows flag/logo picture appears with the moving dots/dashes beneath the logo the dots just keep moving forever and ever...

2.- PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_8024&SUBSYS_E0141631&REV_00\4&BC67B8D&0&38F0

3.- Motherboard Mexico NF3 (GA-8I945PM)
Nome: Messico (GA-8I945PM Ver 1.0)
BIOS Type: Award
BIOS ID 07/03/2006-i945P-6A79TG04C-00-None
BIOS OEM Intel I945P BIOS for 8I945PM 10R NF3 - 10R
BIOS Date: July 3rd 2006
Chipset: Intel 2770 rev 129
SuperIO: ITE 8712F rev 7 at port 002E
Manufacturer: NEC COMPUTERS INTERNATIONAL
Motherboard: GA-8I945PM
os: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition Service Pack 3.0

bios award software version 10R

4.- cd-rom - hard drive

5.- only wd my home 500 gb

Friday, June 06, 2008 7:52 PM

i have the same problem with my 500G WD !...

Monday, June 09, 2008 9:17 AM

Perhaps a solution as seen in another thread.

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3329616&SiteID=17

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 12:20 PM

I am reposting content from another thread that I posted on yesterday.

Hi guys,

There appears to a problem with SP3 and sb2port.sys based 1394 storage devices during boot time . We are investigating the root cause of this and will update you once we have something concrete to report. We now know that this is a timing issue and is dependent on the hardware config (specifically the 1394 controller) of the users machine.

What will really help us is if you can share your system info with us. Further more if you can share the registry hive under the current control set it will nail this down faster.

To get the hive

1- Type regedit in run prompt
2- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
3- Click on the CurrentControlSet key and then in the file options menu export to a .reg file.

You can send me the hives at jayaramk-AT-microsoft.com .

Thanks
J.

Friday, July 04, 2008 9:20 AM

I have experienced this problem with all my XP computers and not only ones with External Drives, only since I loaded SP3, but let me explain.

In regards to the drive letter going missing if it is not caused by this hard drive issue try this option.

Often when plugging in and unplugging external drives the drive letters can seem to get mixed up or infact appear missing. This may be due to mapped network drives etc. the most common fix is to right click on My Computer, go to Manage and then to Disk Manager. Once in Disk Manager if you can see your external drive but it is not listed in My Computer then just right click on it and change the driver letter. Once you have done that you will see it will appear in My Computer or explorer etc. the downside is that if you have shortcuts or paths running to the original drive letter you may have to change them.

Prefetch: I see there has been some talk about prefetch, it is widely known that by simply clicking on start then run and typing in prefetch you will see the prefetched files, these in basic terms are simply a cache system Windows XP uses and removing all the files should not result in data loss and is known to help speed up the computer in startup.

Now the problem at hand:

The problem I am experiencing is the same as all of you except on a larger scale and not only related to firewire external drives. I have this on 3 computers at present. It is most noticeable on the one computer that has 3 scsi drives, 2 IDE and 1 external USB. The trouble started when I tried to cut and paste an 80 gigabyte folder from one drive to the other, the cut and paste went ahead but left half the files behind on the original drive. I tried to run a chkdsk from My Computer but noticed when I went into the option the computer seemed to hang, however about 20 minutes later it showed me the options to choose auto fix etc. So I decided to go and re-partition the drive in Windows XP Disk Manager and found that when I accessed Disk Manager the system stopped responding for 20 minutes on accessing logical drives. When it finally went in I also noticed that all the extra internal drives now say the partition is Healthy ( Active ) , active being the new option that has come up, even if I format the drive in another computer once installed back into the orginal, Disk Manager still reports Healthy ( Active ) although the drive is blank and not being utilised for any Windows Services.

In desperation I loaded Seagate Disk Manager to try to format the drive and when loading that the program says scanning drives e: etc. and seems to just hang again for 20 minutes trying to access the drives, now before on SP 2 Seagate Disk Manager and Windows Disk Manager just came up in a matter of seconds.

I have not experimented as yet with the disk reliabilty etc. but even after you have managed to partition and format the drive in Windows or Seagate Disk Manager you can copy to and from the drives no problem. However when you go to Disk Manager you get that Loading Logical Disks and the apparent hangup, which infact after 20 or 30 minutes actually goes in to the drives.

In conclusion I believe your hang up at start up with external drives is the same hang up I am getting trying to access the drives in Disk Manager if you left it for 20 to 30 minutes the computer would probably boot.

To try to resolve this I downloaded the latest Seagate Disk Manager thinking there may be a fix in their new version, but strangly when loading this it seemed again to hang for atleast an hour during the install, I left it and came back to find that it had infact installed, so the hang at boot, the hang loading Logical drives, the hang loading Seagate Disk Manager must all be related.

I hope this helps in resolving this issue.

Cheers

Mark

Sunday, July 06, 2008 2:59 PM

I am replying to the portion of this tread on the drive letter issue. Disk Manager is okay presently. On the other hand the drives and partitions that are attached to my Promise Tech. Inc. Ultra 100TX2 IDE Controller VEN - 105A DEV - 4D68 are being shown all over the place. Using Active Partition Recovery I see my drives labelled 80h 60GB Logical C: (Windows) and EXT. Logical I:. Next is 81h 40GB Logical D: and Ext. Logical J: and K:. Following that is 82h 279GB Logical E:, F:, and G:. Last is 83h 12GB Logical H:.

Disk Management is showing the 60GB as Logical C: (Windows - a good thing) and Ext. Logical G:. Next the 40GB is showing Logical D: and Ext. Logical H: and I:. Next is the 279GB which interestingly enough is only showing 128GB with only one Logical drive as E:. Last is the 12GB showing Logical F:.

One other interesting note is that there is on this boot a flash drive is showing as Logical M: however under the Status column it says Active. I wonder...

I shutdown and removed the flash drive and the only issue that appeared on reboot was it took about 30-45 seconds to get into Disk Management.

I hope that someone gets this straighten out so I can finish my load.

HTH,

Rich

Tuesday, July 08, 2008 6:56 PM

after sp3 my reboots are strange....

at the point my bios (dell) finnishes it seems to hang for 10 secs, the a black screen with white writing. something like logical drive 0 cannot be found, or drive 0 cannot be found, then 10 seconds later it finds something and the windows splash screen starts. Takes a while on the splash screen now before it starts....

i'm uninstalling sp3 till they get it right!

came in through manual windows update off the web site.

i'll wait for the auto update. hopefully it won't be rubbish by then.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008 7:15 PM

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxe wrote:

after sp3 my reboots are strange....

i'm uninstalling sp3 till they get it right!

came in through manual windows update off the web site.

i'll wait for the auto update. hopefully it won't be rubbish by then.

correction, the white text says "secondary hard drive 0 cannot be found"....

anyone knows hot to get rid of it please tell me.

this might be just on restarts, not hard reboots (ie, power off , power on)????

Tuesday, July 08, 2008 8:08 PM

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxe wrote:

the white text says "secondary hard drive 0 cannot be found"...

You've added your question to the end of a thread on a totally different topic. However:

1. Check that your BIOS settings for boot-order are correct.

2. Check that the contents of c:\boot.ini (a hidden file) are correct. This can get confused if your run SP3 on a PC with more than one installation of Windows on the same hard disk.

Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:19 PM

I have this issue too. How do I find the 'key' metioned in step 3? Is folder? I do not see anything name 'key' in the file noted in step 2. Yes I am a rookie.

Kent

Sunday, July 20, 2008 10:59 PM

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet <----the FOLDER with this name is the 'key'

Nested within it (at least on my systems) are the following folders:

Control
Enum
Hardware Profiles
Services

What you're supposed to do is while the "CurrentControlSet" is highlighted, Right Click with our mouse, and select "Export"

Save the key as a .reg file, send via email, then proceed to say "duh" three times to your friends and family

Monday, July 21, 2008 12:55 AM

I am having the exact same problem with my (Sony Vaio and Toshiba Satellites), as described in this thread, and also have a problem with the firewire 750GB WD MyBook plugged in on boot, as described here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3329616&SiteID=17

First off let me state that I do not believe that it matters what the computer hardware is. This COULD be a Western Digital problem, but the universality I've seen, plus among the complaints from other users indicates to me that this is a OS or Driver problem.

While I have never successfully booted any XPSP3 computer with the firewire plugged in, I have been, on more than one occasion able to access the drive on multiple XPSP3 computers, but only after a frustrating round of plugging/unplugging the firewire cable and/or power cycle. Because I find this problem to be one of the most complicated, confounding problems I've ever witnessed, I will provide excurciating detail for how I'm able to make it work.

I claim no awareness on what I am doing to make it work, I have just found a brute force method that with patience, produces functional results. Every instance starts by booting the computer with the firewire UNPLUGGED. In every case, I have opened "My Computer", Device Manager & Services MMC plugins, and Safely Remove Hardware Wizard. The steps are unaffected if there are other USB devices connected or other software loaded. Each time, I insure that the Logical Disk Administrative Service and Logical Disk Manager services and their dependants are running.

Once boot is completed, I plug in the MyBook firewire HD WDH1CS7500

In Device Manager, there will be WD MyBook IEEE SBP2 Device with the yellow exclamation point.

Under Properties>General tab the Device Status window indicates Code 10 error. Above that I see the following:

WD My Book IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device
Device Type: Disk Drives
Manufacturer: (Standard Disk drives)
Location: LUN 0

Under Properties>Policies---**I will explain further down**

Under Properties>Volumes tab there is no data displayed. Clicking the Populate button

results in the following dialog box error error after a brief pause:

"Volume information for this disk cannot be found. This may happen if the disk is a 1394 or a USB device on a Windows 2000 machine."

Under Properties>Driver tab:
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Date: 7/1/2001
Driver Version: 5.1.2535.0

Under Properties>Details tab::
Device Instance Id
SBP2\WD&MY_BOOK&LUN0\0090A9FFAE71BAB9
Hardware Ids
SBP2\WD&My_Book&CmdSetId104D8&GenDisk
SBP2\WD&My_Book&CmdSetId104D8
SBP2\WD&My_Book&LUN0
SBP2\GenDisk
GenDisk

In the Safely Remove Hardware wizard, I also see WD MyBook IEEE SBP2 Device, but there are no nested device components displayed (even with the Display device components check box checked). If connected other USB devices will show the full device component tree.

In Disk Management DISK 2 will indicate Healthy (Active) but with no drive letter assignment.

Right clicking Properties doesn't illict a response.
Right Click and selecting "Change Drive Letter and Paths...">"Add...", then selecting

"Assign the following drive letter" radio button (picking G

, then clicking OK button yields the following dialog box error:

LOGICAL DISK MANAGER
"The operation did not complete because the partition or volume is not enabled. To enable the partition or volume, restart the computer."

From this point Going back to Device Manager>"WD MyBook IEEE SBP2 Device Properties>Volumes tab>Populate, the aforementioned error (Volume information....on a windows 2000 machine) does not occur. What DOES display is the following:

Disk: Disk 2
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Style: Master Boot Record (MBR)
Capacity: 715402
Unallocated space: 0MB
Reserved Space: 0MB

In the Capacity column, I will see the drive capacity (715402MB) but under Volume I do not see a drive letter.

All other tabs behave as described prior....ESPECIALLY the Properties>Policies tab. If I click on this tab before or after fiddling with Disk Management, the window freezes, MMC freezes, and Rundll32.exe no longer responds. The only way to resolve this problem is to reboot. Upon the next boot (FIREWIRE UNPLUGGED) I will go through a different iteration of what's described above.

Same things happen, after boot is finished, plug in firewire, I get lights and sound from the MyBook drive, and I'll get error "CODE 10" from the SBP2 device in Device Manager. HOWEVER THERE IS NO DEVICE LISTING IN THE SAFELY REMOVE HARDWARE WIZARD.

From within Device Manager, I disable then re-enable the WD MyBook IEEE 1394 SBP2 device, upon renabling, the device reports under Properties>General tab>Device Status that it's working properly. When I click on Volumes tab>Populate the drive makes an audible read indication but the "Volume information...Windows 2000 Machine" dialog box error returns. This time under General tab>Device status I get "CODE 43".

At thispoint, I'll unplugging the HD FIREWIRE cable. The SBP2 device disappears from Device Manager. Replugging the device produces NO further recognition of the SBP2 device, even with a Scan for Hardware Changes.

NOW: HERE's THE TRICK: WITH THE FIREWIRE STILL PLUGGED INTO THE MACHINE, I power cycle the MyBook hard drive by removing the DC powersupply from the back of the drive, then plug it back in. The drive makes the same blinks and sounds, and the Device Manager will blink as it once again recognizes WD MyBook IEEE 1394 SBP2 device. However, after a short pause, My Computer refreshes and indicates that the hard drive is assigned a drive letter and is accessible.

When I click on Device Properties>Polices, I now can select one of the two Write Cacheing and Safe Removal options (where Optimize for Quick Removal is enabled by default) When I open the Safely Remove Hardware wizard from the systray, I see the WD My Book IEEE 1394 SBP2 device, but this time I see "Generic Volume (H: ) on Volume Manager"

Insane? Yes. Frustrating? *** Yes. A solution...technicall no, but once I get the drive to read, I TRY NOT TO TURN OFF THE COMPUTER

I hope this long, insane, description offers some additional clues to resolving the problem!

Monday, July 21, 2008 1:11 PM

I failed to mention previously that when I succeed in accessing the MyBook, I get a new device in Device manager that DOES NOT APPEAR during those times that the device fails.

WD My Book Device
General
Device Type: WD SAM
Manufacturer Western Digital Technologies
Location: LUN 1
Driver
Provider: Western Digital
Date: 12/5/2006
Version 1.0.7.0
(it is interesting to note that when I examine the Driver files, it calls up WDCSAM.sys, and gives a file version of 1,0,6,0)
Details
Device IDs
SBP2\WD&MY_BOOK_DEVICE&LUN1\0090A9FFAE71BAB9
Hardware IDs
SBP2\WD&My_Book_Device&CmdSetId104D8&GenSbp2Device
SBP2\WD&My_Book_Device&CmdSetId104D8
SBP2\WD&My_Book_Device&LUN1
SBP2\GenSbp2Device
GenSbp2Device

Should also point out that I am using the most up to date driver, here:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=111&sid=58&lang=en

Wednesday, August 06, 2008 12:26 AM

I am having the same problem, but am using a USB cable. My WD 500GB drive is only listed in the device manager. It was originally assigned drive "I". Like everyone else, it simply disappeared after it had been working correctly. Please catch me up on the first thing to try. I've tried to go back and read the threads, but I'm lost. Again, what should I try first?

Wednesday, August 06, 2008 8:42 AM

darrylx, Right-click "My Computer" and select "Manage". In "Computer Management", select "Disk Management". If the WD drive appears in the lower half of the right-hand panel (you might need to scroll), then you can assign it a drive letter by right-clicking on the drive icon.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008 2:15 PM

Guess, I should have mentioned that I've tried all of the basic "fixes" that were mentioned in the thread. Unfortunately, it is not listed or showing in disk management. It is showing in the device manager though. Also, I've tried to delete the infcache1 file, uninstalled the driver and rebooted, and a host of others... Anyway, from what I've read EVERYWHERE, it looks like it has something to do with SP3. So, I'm interested to see what the moderator or anyone else will direct me to try.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008 3:14 PM

darrylx, I am happily using a WD 500 GB disk on USB with SP3. So something has happened with your system that is out of the ordinary. What happens if you insert other USB-based storage devices, such as memory sticks? Do they get given a drive letter?

Wednesday, August 06, 2008 4:11 PM

Yeah, I was happily using SP3 and my 500G My Book for about a year and a half with no problems too... Then suddendly - "Poof" the drive disappeared under my computer. Other USB storage devices are working without a glitch.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 7:57 PM

Go to Control panel>Administrative tools>Computer management>Disk Managment> and right click new drive to create new partition (did this with a new HDD) to start wizard. Choose quick format and name the drive. Rest of defaults in wizard should be ok.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:56 PM

But, once I format (reformat) I'll lose everything that is on the drive, correct? Of course, I'm trying to avoid that at all cost...

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:37 PM

darrylx wrote:

But, once I format (reformat) I'll lose everything that is on the drive, correct? Of course, I'm trying to avoid that at all cost...

Absolutely correct. If I were you I would take the hard drive out of its enclosure and mount it as a secondary hard drive in your computer. This eliminates the USB interface and any problems associated with it.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 8:38 PM

Hi Trini,

I'm having a similar problem: My computer does not assign a new drive letter to any new USB devices that I plug in (i.e. flash drives, digital cameras, iPod, etc.). I see the devise when I use "Safely Remove Hardware" option bot no drive letter shows up, nor does it show up when I go to "Computer Management". My other two USB external HDs are working fine.

I'm using Windows XP SP3. Is there a way to repair this problem without having to re-install all software on my computer?

Any thoughts or solutions are greatly appreciated?

Gail

Wednesday, October 01, 2008 3:28 AM

Hi all: I'm having the same problem with my USB WD My Book AND my Lexar Flash Drive. My Lexar Flash drive worked before I installed sp3, it now doesn't work. It shows in devise manager, it shows in disk manager, but I can't format either one. It tells me the partition or volume is not enabled. Restart windows. I've done this a zillion times. I've checked devise properties and it tells me it is enabled. If I convert it thru dos as ntfs, it doesn't recognize long file names and it never appears in explorer. I've called WD and they told me to format the drive. Well DUH. If I could do this, I would not be calling them. They had me do a low level wipe on the drive. After 8 hours of this running I tried again..delete the partition, add the primary partition, make it active, give it a drive letter like f (did I mention I've tried this with every drive letter from d on up?) and I still can't format it. It has to be some update for windows that was optional, but I'll be danged if I know what it is. I've uninstalled sp3, and I'm still having the problem. Is there a way to find out what was the last updates installed on a pc?

Wednesday, October 01, 2008 2:39 PM

Amanda B.:

Unfortunately, I still haven't had any luck with a "fix" to the problem. My last attempt was to take the WD My book to work where we are still using SP2, but to no avail. Guess the service pack isn't the problem either... Uggghhh! SOMEBODY, ANYBODY; is there any hope!?

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 6:17 AM

I am currently having this problem on two completely different computers. One... a homebuilt desktop with a firewire card, and the other...my dell laptop with a build in firewire plug.

SP3 will simply not boot past the loading screen with my drive plugged into either's firewire. I've updated... rolled back..formatted... reupdated... and come to the conclusion its completely due to sp3. I have no problems whatsoever on sp2. ... and I can also plug it in after boot and the external hd works fine. Also safe mode will not boot either... same circumstances.

So yeah... having to turn my drive on and off with windows is getting really annoying. Id like to be able to leave it on... so I hope a fix comes along.

Sorry I would give you more info but I'm strapped for time. Just wanted to add my problem to the list

Tuesday, July 06, 2010 6:47 AM

This is something which has annoyed the bjeebus out of me ever since I started using XP -- no matter what I do, or what I try (and I'm no neophyte), I can never ever get more than one FireWire device to be recognised by XP. Despite using only Texas Instruments based controllers, despite going through every single revision of XP (from release candidate to Service Pack 3), despite trying to use more than one 1394 host controller, the moment I add a second FireWire device, the machine loses [u]all[/u] disk I/O.

My Macs can all daisychain FireWire drives, Windows 2000 can handle more than one FireWire drive without complaint, Windows 7 also has no problems. It is only XP.

Going back to Windows 2000 is not an option as much of my software (primarily music creation) was written for 32-bit XP. Going forward to Windows 7 is not an option because most of that aforementioned software is no longer in development and will not work with Windows 7's so-called XP Compatibility Mode.

Thursday, July 29, 2010 10:40 AM

I would say it is something in that sp3, have you tried getting the 3sp from a differnt sorce? Also I have found manytimes Netframes "if your not using them" can cause issues.

SP3 not assigning drive letters to external drive, Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service stuck in 'Starting'

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