External USB attached drive works in Windows XP but not in Windows 7. How to fix?
- by irrational John
Earlier this week I purchased this "N52300 EZQuest Pro" external hard drive enclosure from here.
I can connect the enclosure using USB 2.0 and access the files in both NTFS partitions on the MBR partitioned drive when I use either Windows XP (SP3) or Mac OS X 10.6. So it works as expected in XP & Snow Leopard.
However, the enclosure does not work in Windows 7 (Home Premium) either 64-bit or 32-bit or in Ubuntu 10.04 (kernel 2.6.32-23-generic).
I'm thinking this must be a Windows 7 driver problem because the enclosure works in XP & Snow Leopard. I do know that no special drivers are required to use this enclosure. It is supported using the USB mass storage drivers included with XP and OS X. It should also work fine using the mass storage support in Windows 7, no?
FWIW, I have also tried using 32-bit Windows 7 on both my desktop, a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 with a Pentium Dual-Core E6500 @ 2.93GHz, and on my early 2008 MacBook. I see the same failure in both cases that I see with 64-bit Windows 7. So it doesn't appear to be specific to one hardware platform.
I'm hoping someone out there can help me either get the enclosure to work in Windows 7 or convince me that the enclosure hardware is bad and should be RMAed. At the moment though an RMA seems pointless since this appears to be a (Windows 7) device driver problem.
I have tried to track down any updates to the mass storage drivers included with Windows 7 but have so far come up empty. Heck, I can't even figure out how to place a bug report with Microsoft since apparently the grace period for Windows 7 email support is only a few months.
I came across a link to some USB troubleshooting steps in another question. I haven't had a chance to look over the suggestions on that site or try them yet. Maybe tomorrow if I have time ... ;-)
I'll finish up with some more details about the problem.
When I connect the enclosure using USB to Windows 7 at first it appears everything worked. Windows detects the drive and installs a driver for it. Looking in Device Manager there is an entry under the Hard Drives section with the title, Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 USB Device.
When you open Windows Disk Management the first time after the enclosure has been attached the drive appears as "Not initialize" and I'm prompted to initialize it. This is bogus. After all, the drive worked fine in XP so I know it has already been initialized, partitioned, and formatted. So of course I never try to initialize it "again". (It's a 1 GB drive and I don't want to lose the data on it).
Except for this first time, the drive never shows up in Disk Management again unless I uninstall the Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 USB Device entry under Hard Drives, unplug, and then replug the enclosure. If I do that then the process in the previous paragraph repeats.
In Ubuntu the enclosure never shows up at all at the file system level.
Below are an excerpt from kern.log and an excerpt from the result of lsusb -v after attaching the enclosure. It appears that Ubuntu at first recongnizes the enclosure and is attempting to attach it, but encounters errors which prevent it from doing so. Unfortunately, I don't know whether any of this info is useful or not.
excerpt from kern.log
[ 2684.240015] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22
[ 2684.393618] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 2684.395399] scsi17 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 2684.395570] usb-storage: device found at 22
[ 2684.395572] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 2689.390412] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 2689.390894] scsi 17:0:0:0: Direct-Access Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 ST6O PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[ 2689.392237] sd 17:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg7 type 0
[ 2689.395269] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
[ 2689.395632] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[ 2689.395636] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 11 00 00 00
[ 2689.395639] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 2689.412003] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 2689.412009] sde: sde1 sde2
[ 2689.455759] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 2689.455765] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk
[ 2692.620017] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22
[ 2707.740014] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2722.970103] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2723.200027] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22
[ 2738.320019] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2753.550024] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2753.780020] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22
[ 2758.810147] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2763.940142] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2764.170014] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22
[ 2769.200141] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2774.330137] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2774.440069] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 22
[ 2774.440503] sd 17:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery
[ 2774.590023] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 23
[ 2789.710020] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2804.940020] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2805.170026] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 24
[ 2820.290019] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2835.520027] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2835.750018] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 25
[ 2840.780085] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2845.910079] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2846.140023] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 26
[ 2851.170112] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2856.300077] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2856.410027] hub 1-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
[ 2856.730033] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 11
[ 2871.850017] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2887.080014] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2887.310011] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 12
[ 2902.430021] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2917.660013] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 2917.890016] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 13
[ 2922.911623] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2928.051753] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2928.280013] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 14
[ 2933.301876] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2938.431993] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110
[ 2938.540073] hub 3-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
excerpt from lsusb -v
Bus 001 Device 017: ID 0dc4:0000 Macpower Peripherals, Ltd
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 2.00
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 64
idVendor 0x0dc4 Macpower Peripherals, Ltd
idProduct 0x0000
bcdDevice 0.01
iManufacturer 1 EZ QUEST
iProduct 2 USB Mass Storage
iSerial 3 220417
bNumConfigurations 1
Configuration Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 2
wTotalLength 32
bNumInterfaces 1
bConfigurationValue 1
iConfiguration 5 Config0
bmAttributes 0xc0
Self Powered
MaxPower 0mA
Interface Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 4
bInterfaceNumber 0
bAlternateSetting 0
bNumEndpoints 2
bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage
bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI
bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk (Zip)
iInterface 4 Interface0
Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x01 EP 1 OUT
bmAttributes 2
Transfer Type Bulk
Synch Type None
Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes
bInterval 0
Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN
bmAttributes 2
Transfer Type Bulk
Synch Type None
Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes
bInterval 0
Device Qualifier (for other device speed):
bLength 10
bDescriptorType 6
bcdUSB 2.00
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 64
bNumConfigurations 1
Device Status: 0x0001
Self Powered
Update: Results using Firewire to connect.
Today I recieved a 1394b 9 pin to 1394a 6 pin cable which allowed me to connect the "EZQuest Pro" via Firewire. Everything works.
When I use Firewire I can connect whether I'm using Windows 7 or Ubuntu 10.04. I even tried booting my Gigabyte desktop as an OS X 10.6.3 Hackintosh and it worked there as well. (Though if I recall correctly, it also worked when using USB 2.0 and booting OS X on the desktop. Certainly it works with USB 2.0 and my MacBook.)
I believe the firmware on the device is at the latest level available, v1.07. I base this on the excerpt below from the OS X System Profiler which shows Firmware Revision: 0x107.
Bottom line: It's nice that the enclosure is actually usable when I connect with Firewire. But I am still searching for an answer as to why it does not work correctly when using USB 2.0 in Windows 7 (and Ubuntu ... but really Windows 7 is my biggest concern).
OXFORD IDE Device 1:
Manufacturer: EZ QUEST
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0x1D202E0220417
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
OXFORD IDE Device 1 Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x107
Product Revision Level: ST6O
Sub-units:
OXFORD IDE Device 1 SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk3
Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
