Is there any way in Windows 2000 or XP to reconnect an external drive that has been unplugged/ejected in the systray? It is not feasible to unplug and replug a Firewire/USB cable or cycle the power supply of the external drive. Thanks.
Reconnecting External Drive
- Thread starter LunarMist
- Start date
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Have you tried running a find new hardware?
ddrueding
Fixture
I've always found that unplugging/replugging the drive works fine. I've only used USB drives (no firewire).
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
I played around a bit with USB flash drives on my W2k Prof. system. Seems to be no way to accomplish what you want. W2k help blithely states "To reinstall the device, connect the device to the appropriate slot or port", implying that you have to physically disconnect before reconnecting.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
That's weird. I unplug and plug stuff all the time with 2k and it works. Firewire and USB both.
ddrueding said:
Yeah it works fine, but not from 10 feet away and under a table.
Maybe I need to explore some other options like a computer controlled power switch. Are there any such animals that run from a USB port?
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
I usually use an extension cable with the middle routed near me. That way it's easy to do the physical break/reconnect....
ddrueding
Fixture
LunarMist said:Yeah it works fine, but not from 10 feet away and under a table.
Both ends are under the desk? Most allow the cable to be unplugged at the drive end as well.
The computer is under a desk which is ~4 feet away, but the storage would be further away than that. Now it is not practical to reach the cable and I don't want ugly cables runnign all over the place. Are there any AC powered controllers that are not serial?
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Windows 2000 has some serious problems with USB and other hot pluggable drives. I firmly believe that these are deliberate - i.e., that Micro$oft are carefully not fixing them so as to try to force you to spend another $250 of your hard earned on a copy of XP Pro.
This isn't quite what you were looking for, LunarMist, but just so that you don't feel quite so all alone, here is the one that bugs me.
When I eject a Compact Flash card, W2K throws a hickey fit, complaining bitterly that I ejected the drive without stopping it first, and asking me if I'd like to have a nice little "eject" button on my system tray. Sure. Why not?
Because the bloody thing is useless, that's why not. You have two choices.
(a) Use the stop function. That lets you eject the CF card without any stupid error messages. But you can't use that drive again without rebooting! It's totally rooted until you restart the system. How stupid is that?
(b) Ignore the eject button. Just pull the flash card out and click OK when Windows cracks a Nellie on you. Insert the next CF card and it works just fine. But be sure not to let the system go into standby mode without clicking "OK" first, otherwise the drive becomes unusable and you have to reboot again.
This was more or less the state of play with W2KSP3. Foolishly, I assumed that SP4 would fix it - SP4 was supposed to sort out all the USB2 problems, after all, so I thought they would fix this particular stupidity too. No such luck. Under SP 4 it is exactly the same.
Micro$oft $uck.
By the way, it doesn't matter if you use a USB 1.x, USB 2.0, or PCMCIA connection for your flash card. Windows 2000 buggers them all up with equal inability.
This isn't quite what you were looking for, LunarMist, but just so that you don't feel quite so all alone, here is the one that bugs me.
When I eject a Compact Flash card, W2K throws a hickey fit, complaining bitterly that I ejected the drive without stopping it first, and asking me if I'd like to have a nice little "eject" button on my system tray. Sure. Why not?
Because the bloody thing is useless, that's why not. You have two choices.
(a) Use the stop function. That lets you eject the CF card without any stupid error messages. But you can't use that drive again without rebooting! It's totally rooted until you restart the system. How stupid is that?
(b) Ignore the eject button. Just pull the flash card out and click OK when Windows cracks a Nellie on you. Insert the next CF card and it works just fine. But be sure not to let the system go into standby mode without clicking "OK" first, otherwise the drive becomes unusable and you have to reboot again.
This was more or less the state of play with W2KSP3. Foolishly, I assumed that SP4 would fix it - SP4 was supposed to sort out all the USB2 problems, after all, so I thought they would fix this particular stupidity too. No such luck. Under SP 4 it is exactly the same.
Micro$oft $uck.
By the way, it doesn't matter if you use a USB 1.x, USB 2.0, or PCMCIA connection for your flash card. Windows 2000 buggers them all up with equal inability.
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
That's odd. I've never used a CF, but have no problems stopping/removing and re-using USB (1.1 and 2) flash drives on W2kPro without rebooting.
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
I routinely connect and disconnect my mp3 player with no problems on 2K. It is CF based and the system sees it as a simple USB drive. I don't recall what happens if I don't follow the proscribed disconnect procedures but if I do I can reconnect no problem. It does take 5-10 seconds for 2K to recognize that the drive has been reconnected.
Will Rickards WT
Learning Storage Performance
It could be like my CF card reader. If I leave the reader plugged in and switch cards it doesn't work. I have to disconnect the reader, switch cards, then plug it back in. But hey the reader was free.