[RESOLVED] USB hard drive crashes the computer

[Johkaz]

Hi,

My operating system is Windows Vista 64 bit, with the latest updates installed.
My anti-virus program is AVG 90.800 Free Edition.
And the last program i installed was the Acronis True Image Home 2010 program, with an update to 7,406 and aslo i have installed SnapAPI503.

And the problem is that i cannot remove my 500GB Hitatchi Deskstar external hard drive via the Safely Remove Hardware option. Because no matter how i try i cannot get it to shut down safely, and if i remove the USB 2.0 lead, wait and then plug it back in. And then try to remove the drive, my computer crashes and i get an IRQL NOT EQUAL blue screen come up.

But if i go into Safe Mode, i can remove the drive safely via the Safely Remove Hardware option.

So i am wondering if anyone can help me?

Thanks.

Gary

[HAN]

Something is using the external drive, either scanning it, reading from it or writing to it. The question is what? If it only started when you added TI, then I'd suspect that. Do you have a scheduled backup set up in TI? If so, disable it and see if that helps.

[Johkaz]

Hi,

Many thanks for the reply.

And i have removed all Scheduled items from the Acronis program, and i have rebooted.
But unfortunatly something is still taking control of the drive, so that i cannot shut it down.
If it helps i have the 500GB drive set up as three partitions L:\, S:\ AND T:\.

The drive itself was bought at the same time as i bought the Acronis program, mainly so that i could have my backup's held off my main desktop computer. I used to have the Intergal IDE caddy holding an 80GB drive, and that closed down ok. But now with the 500GB one installed instead, i am having these problems.

Gary

[Train]

AVG needs to be checked out as it may be the cause.
It maybe set to immediately scan that drive.

[HAN]

Agreed that the next suspect is your AV.

If you can't find what has a death grip on the drive, you might consider trying a 3rd party app called USB Disk Ejector http://quick.mixnmojo.com/usb-disk-e...ease-hopefully This is the most recent build and in my test, is stable. It is a standalone program so all you need to do is download the zip file, extract it into its own folder and run it.

[Johkaz]

Hi,

Again many thanks for the replies.
And this may sound silly, but i cannot find a way to stop AVG from running?
As i am sure that with other versions of it, i could right click the Taskbar icon and stop the program if i wanted to.

I do have it set to run and check Removable Drives like my memory sticks, but when i unticked that feature and re-booted the computer. I still had the same problem as above, where i just cannot remove the drives.

This is a copy of the text i got, when my computer came back up from the last crash, which it wanted to send to Microsoft. But when i checked the folders it says, there is nothing in them.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: a
BCP1: 0000000000000010
BCP2: 000000000000000C
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: FFFFF800028CD194
OS Version: 6_0_6002
Service Pack: 2_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini040610-01.dmp
C:\Users\Gary\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-84614-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\Gary\AppData\Local\Temp\WER61AF.tmp.version.txt

Thanks.

Gary

[jdc2000]

Unfortunately, the latest version of AVG doesn't want to let go of your system once it has a grip on it. You may have to download and run the AVG Removal Tool to remove AVG, at least temporarily, in order to see if AVG is causing your USB drive safe removal issue.

[Johkaz]

Hi,

Well something has a real grip on my system somewhere, because i tried the program that was mentioned by HAN.

And not even that could stop the drives.



Gary

[Johkaz]

Hi,

I removed AVG via the Remove Programs in the control panel, and I then run the AVG Removal tool to get rid of any left over files. I clicked on the Remove Device Safely icon, and I got an hour glass come up and then I got the blue screen again – IRQL NOT EQUAL.

The computer restarted again and once loaded up I tried to stop the drives again, and once again I got the hourglass, and the same blue screen and error message again.

I re-downloaded the AVG program again and installed it, this time I un-ticked the option to scan removable drives. The install finished and the computer rebooted again, and now when I try to use the Remove Device Safely icon, I still cannot remove these drives. But this time I just get the grey screen about the drives being busy and try to later.

What I have found out by accident is, that the other USB devices I have or USB sockets can be removed by the use of the Remove Device Safely icon, but for some reason this problem seems to be with the USB and the hard drive.

Gary

[Train]

R-click the ICON and select the Safely remove Hardware.
Select the stop button.
Select you device and click OK.

Does that way work?

[Johkaz]

Hi,

I have tried the way that you describe on each of the items listed, and each time i get the same result.



A question if i may which might be related to this.

Does the BIOS control what the USB devices do? Because i have had an unrelated problem with my computer, where i cannot get it to go into Hibernation. And all it does is give me another blue screen if i try it. And the last time i did try the Hibernation some months ago, to get my computer back i had to i think press F2 and get the default BIOS working on this computer. So i lost the recent BIOS update that was done for me.

Gary

[Train]

"Hibernation"

Never had it work on any computer that I have owned. Plus the electric bill is less when I shut the computer down.

"So i lost the recent BIOS update"

No, you have not lost the update, but you did lose some setting in the BIOS. And that could interfere with what you are trying to do.

Go into the bios and set all the USB to enabled.

[Johkaz]

Hi,

Another option that i have tried is i have uninstalled Acronis, in case that was causing the problem. But even after rebooting i still have the grey screen come up as shown in my post above. And still something is hanging onto the drive so it cannot be safely removed.

Regarding the BIOS settings i generally try to stay away from them, but i have gone into it for the photos below, and i have changed nothing on it.









Edit:

The 500GB hard drive is an IDE one if that makes any difference, and i have the little plugs on it set to A-B & G-H as in the instructions about the drive




Many thanks to all for the time and help here so far.

Gary

[Train]

Enable Plug and Play O/S
Windows is a plug and play O/S.

Mass storage reset Delay, I would shorten that time as much as I could.

http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.a...ng=0&bogno=428

[SpywareDr]

A general description of IRQ sharing in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068/EN-US/

The Plug and Play operating system settings in the computer BIOS do not generally affect how Windows XP handles the hardware. However,

Microsoft recommends that you set the Plug and Play operating system setting to No or Disabled in the computer BIOS.

For information about viewing or modifying the computer BIOS settings, see the computer documentation, or contact the computer manufacturer.

Manually assigning IRQs to PCI slots in the system BIOS as a troubleshooting method may work on some non-ACPI systems that use a standard PC hardware abstraction layer (HAL), but these settings are ignored by Plug and Play in Windows if ACPI support is enabled. If you must manually assign IRQ addresses through the BIOS to a device on an ACPI motherboard, you must reinstall Windows to force the installation to use a Standard PC HAL.