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USB key appears and then disappears

  • 19-01-2011 8:18pm
    #1
    zagmund
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,501 ✭✭✭


    This one has me stumped. I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but I can't work out what process is doing it so I'm having trouble trying to work out where exactly to investigate.

    Here's the scenario - Windows 7, running Kaspersky.

    I was working away on some files on my USB key earlier today for a good 15-20 minutes when all of a sudden the drive letter just vanished. I unplugged and replugged the drive, Windows popped up the "what to do with a new volume" dialog and Kaspersky popped up the "how do you want me to scan this new volume" dialog. In addition the drive letter appeared in Explorer.

    Then it went away again. I unplugged and replugged and the same thing happened. Now, I had this USB key in the machine and was working on it and my Vista machine (also running Kaspersky) has no problems with it.

    I had a look in eventviewer and among all the Krsysksyskstanian that Microsoft fill the logs up with these days there were repeated "Drive attached", "Drive removed" messages about 5 seconds apart, but no indication of what was doing the removing.

    Does anyone have any hints on what the problem might be or how to translate the cryptic messages that are in the event log into something a little more useful ?

    Thanks,

    z


Comments

  • #2
    aidan_walsh
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,208 ✭✭✭✭aidan_walsh


    Were you attaching and removing them from the same port? Are there other ports to check, make sure its not the port itself? Do other devices work correctly?


  • #3
    joe2687
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 94 ✭✭joe2687


    Try right clicking on 'My Computer', and select 'Manage'. The insert your USB disk. Go to disk management, and when your drive shows up, right click on it and change drive letter. Change to somethign obscure, O: or S:, for example.

    Something like this happened me before, and this worked.


  • #4
    zagmund
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,501 ✭✭✭zagmund


    Aidan - following your suggestion I tried different ports but had the same result. Then I had a look at the detail of the error message and it was a process called vmcservice which was reporting the disk insertion/removal.

    A quick google revealed this was related to my Vodafone 3g dongle thing (which I haven't used in months) so I cursed Vodafone and stopped the service. No change other than it was no longer reporting in eventviewer, but the drive was still vanishing.

    It's possible the Vodafone service was simply noting that a device had been inserted and removed, so all I achieved was getting rid of the notification.

    Joe - will try that now.

    z


  • #5
    zagmund
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,501 ✭✭✭zagmund


    Joe - I tried it 20 or 30 times, but it's just not possible to hit all the keys in the limited time frame. You have to hit change, then a drive letter, then OK to confirm and by the time you even think of OK the drive has gone.

    I rebooted with the Vodafone service off and it looked like the problem had gone away. But it hadn't. Based on limited observation from yesterday and today it looks like the drive is happy there for a while after boot up - maybe 30 minutes and after that the behaviour kicks in and the drive vanishes.

    I'm going to try with a different USB key and see if that has any impact.

    z


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