VISTA external drive problem

I have a dual boot desk top computer with VISTA and XP on separate drives. I
also have an external drive [inside an enclosure].

XP sees all the drives and assigns them letters C D and E. The optical DVD
drive is letter F.

Device manager says usb drive and mass storage is working properly.

The three hard drives all seagate [250gb, 250gb and the external is
160gb ] can be seen in the Bios.

However in VISTA the external hard drive can be seen in disk management and
device manager but NOT IN "computer"

In VISTA the external drive cannot be assigned a letter or formatted [using
disk management . I formatted the drive and assigned a letter in XP, but it
still cannot be seen in "computer" in VISTA.

One other difference in vista is the appearance of "other devices" in the
device manager with an "unknown device" showing. It does not seem possible
to allocate a driver to this unknown device.. I tried disabling and removing
this unknown device but no difference.

I used "seagate disk wizard" to reformat the external drive successfully and
also ran "seatools for windows" to test the external drive - it passed the
short generic test..

The external disk has a driver disk.sys [the same in XP and VISTA]

The mass storage device showing in device manager [usb controllers] has the
driver usbstor.sys [the same in XP and VISTA].

I checked that USBSTOR.INF and PNF and SYS are in c:\windows\inf.

I removed INFCACH.1 from c:\windows\inf and have since replaced it. -no
change

I have tried disabling UAC and running as administrator but no change..

I have tried power cycling and unplugging and reinserting the USB cable -
no change.

I have used several different USB plugs - front of computer and rear of the
computer - no change.

I have tried to change the DISK.SYS driver in VISTA to usbstor.inf. or
usbstor.sys but it does not seem possible??

I would like to get rid of XP but perhaps you CANNOT install an external
drive in VISTA.???

Sounds like you've been pretty comprehensive.

You certainly can install an external drive in Vista. I use one here, but in
my case it was just a case of plugging it in and Vista did the rest.

Some other suggestions ...

- View >'Devices by connection' in Device Manager might help to see if the
'Unknown device' is in the chain.

-Run 'computer' elevated to see if it appears
ie run a shortcut to ' explorer shell:mycomputerfolder ' elevated
(right-click > Run as administrator)

-Check for any security settings eg group policy that may affect the
configuration / use of usb storage devices

--
Jon


"Bill Llewellyn" <> wrote in message
news:%...
>I have a dual boot desk top computer with VISTA and XP on separate drives.
>I also have an external drive [inside an enclosure].
>
> XP sees all the drives and assigns them letters C D and E. The optical
> DVD drive is letter F.
>
> Device manager says usb drive and mass storage is working properly.
>
> The three hard drives all seagate [250gb, 250gb and the external is
> 160gb ] can be seen in the Bios.
>
> However in VISTA the external hard drive can be seen in disk management
> and device manager but NOT IN "computer"
>
> In VISTA the external drive cannot be assigned a letter or formatted
> [using disk management . I formatted the drive and assigned a letter in
> XP, but it still cannot be seen in "computer" in VISTA.
>
> One other difference in vista is the appearance of "other devices" in the
> device manager with an "unknown device" showing. It does not seem possible
> to allocate a driver to this unknown device.. I tried disabling and
> removing this unknown device but no difference.
>
> I used "seagate disk wizard" to reformat the external drive successfully
> and also ran "seatools for windows" to test the external drive - it passed
> the short generic test..
>
> The external disk has a driver disk.sys [the same in XP and VISTA]
>
> The mass storage device showing in device manager [usb controllers] has
> the driver usbstor.sys [the same in XP and VISTA].
>
> I checked that USBSTOR.INF and PNF and SYS are in c:\windows\inf.
>
> I removed INFCACH.1 from c:\windows\inf and have since replaced it. -no
> change
>
> I have tried disabling UAC and running as administrator but no change..
>
> I have tried power cycling and unplugging and reinserting the USB
> cable - no change.
>
> I have used several different USB plugs - front of computer and rear of
> the computer - no change.
>
> I have tried to change the DISK.SYS driver in VISTA to usbstor.inf. or
> usbstor.sys but it does not seem possible??
>
> I would like to get rid of XP but perhaps you CANNOT install an external
> drive in VISTA.???
>
>
>
>

hi Jon
thanks for your input..
Yes the unknown device shows up in "devices by connection."
Windows finds driver for this device - but error while attempting to install
it.??
["no driver selected for the device information set or element"]

It does not show in a "shortcut to ' explorer shell:mycomputerfolder '
elevated
> (right-click > Run as administrator"

I have vista home premium so do not have gpedit..
I have the power setting to "performance". setting it to anything else has
no effect on my problem??

perhaps I will have to wait for vista SP1 ???
or stick to XP ???
I mostly use my computer for games...

bill


"Jon" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Sounds like you've been pretty comprehensive.
>
> You certainly can install an external drive in Vista. I use one here, but
> in my case it was just a case of plugging it in and Vista did the rest.
>
> Some other suggestions ...
>
> - View >'Devices by connection' in Device Manager might help to see if the
> 'Unknown device' is in the chain.
>
> -Run 'computer' elevated to see if it appears
> ie run a shortcut to ' explorer shell:mycomputerfolder ' elevated
> (right-click > Run as administrator)
>
> -Check for any security settings eg group policy that may affect the
> configuration / use of usb storage devices
>
> --
> Jon
>

"Bill Llewellyn" <> wrote in message
news:...
> hi Jon
> thanks for your input..
> Yes the unknown device shows up in "devices by connection."
> Windows finds driver for this device - but error while attempting to install it.??
> ["no driver selected for the device information set or element"]
>
> It does not show in a "shortcut to ' explorer shell:mycomputerfolder ' elevated
>> (right-click > Run as administrator"
>
> I have vista home premium so do not have gpedit..
> I have the power setting to "performance". setting it to anything else has no effect on my
> problem??
>
> perhaps I will have to wait for vista SP1 ???
> or stick to XP ???
> I mostly use my computer for games...

Bill,

Have you installed all updates? How long have you had this
computer? Since Vista's release there have have been several
updates that have improved performance and reliability.
Especially, in regards to USB problems.


-Michael

hi
i had a dual boot -vista first then xp on seperate drives.
I have done a fresh install xp first then vista.
this seems to have cured the problem of vista
not seeing the external drive...