XP wont assign drive letter to USB 2.0 HDD on USB 1.1 port

overlaying USB 1.0 with USB 2.0

This must be a driver issue, although with over two years of dispondant indecision I cant be sure.

I was brought here by keywords "usb 2.0 - 1.0"
I have a mobo with 1.0 pins and have a 2.0 PC mount cable. Can I attatch this 2.0 cable to a 1.0 motherboard?

I have yet to see any discouragement but I don't believe it could be that easy.

Hi all.

I was having the asme problem, and now is solved.

The problem become because I was installed DAEMON TOOLS, and later I was reinstalled the Windows XP because a mainboard upgrade.

You must delete the file "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\SPTD.SYS"

To do that you must start the Windows XP in safe mode command line.

During the boot, there is a message at the bottom of the screen, saying something like: "Press Esc to disable SPTD". Ok press Esc when you see this message.

In the DAMEON TOOLS web page, there exist a utility called "sptdinst_x86.exe". Download it to a simple folder, like "C:\TMP", and then execute "C:\TMP\sptdinst_x86.exe add". Then reboot the machine and the problem is solved.

Kind regards.

Jano.

Well I bought a USB 2.0 PCI card and an external HDD enclosure for my problem.
"Disc Management" seems to have some issues seeing the drive if it wasn't formatted properly first so:

-use the manufacturers tools or Disc Management and
-format from an IDE cable first (if you need to)
-make sure you have all the right drivers installed
-make sure your BIOS supports any of your hardware features
-check if your drive was assigned a letter/name before (if it was "F:/maxtor" and now "f:/" is another drive it might confuse windows. you may need to navigate in regedit to:[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]
and delete all entries like: "\DosDevices/A/B/C/D...":This resets how windows sees the hardware drive configuration. Not for most usb problems though)

Jason, You are a HERO! - I have tried everything and then some, googled myself silly, and then I hit on your advice, tried it - and that was it.
Thanks a million! Zillion!

All the best - much luck - health - happiness!

solution: a damaged virtual cd driver

OK,
I think i have a solution for this problem.

I had the same problem and looked around the internet for a solution, but nothing solved my problem. All the answers suggested testing the usb stick on another computer or using the disk management to assign a new drive letter, but these procedures didn't solve my problem.

I had Daemon tools (virtual CD) previously installed on my system, and the installation was corrupted. I think it was after i repaired windows using the repair procedure from the original CD, which actually installs windows again over the existing one. After that Daemon Tools stopped working, disappeared from the "add/remove programs" list, but somehow stayed on the system and caused trouble...

I think what was causing the problem is not Daemon tools itself (i used ver 4.0.3), but the ScsiPassThrough-driver (SPTD) that is installed with it (ver 1.25). Someohow it confuses windows with the drive letters. (according to daemon tools "SPTD is also used in some proprietary security, antivirus and monitoring applications...") so maybe you could have the same problem even if you don't have daemon tools installed. Anyway, you may want to try these steps anyway, they might solve your problem.

i couldn't re-install daemon tools, since i got error when installing the sptd driver.

How to fix the problem:

1. download the stand-alone sptd driver from here: http://www.duplexsecure.com/downloads/SPTDinst-v135-x86.exe
or here for 64bit:
http://www.duplexsecure.com/downloads/SPTDinst-v135-x64.exe
do not run the installation, but save it to the hard drive.

2. start the computer in safe mode.

3. click start->run... browse and select the installer from where you saved it, and add the word remove at the end of the line (so you will have something like (in my case i placed the installer on the desktop):
"C:\Documents and Settings\User01\Desktop\sptdinst_x86.exe" remove
and click ok.

restart the computer normally.
After i did this, i plugged in the usb stick and VIOLA! it works!

You should be able to reinstall daemon tools if you wish to. If you still have problems with installing it, restart the computer again to safe mode and do the following:

4. repeat step 3 but change the word "remove" to "add" like this:
"C:\Documents and Settings\User01\Desktop\sptdinst_x86.exe" add
and click ok.

5. restart again normally and install daemon tools.


I hope it helps...
Roy.

ok plp u got this all wrong...
when u plug the usb drive it will be show in device manager as drive, but windows but recognize it as a volume... in other words disk manager wont show it at all.. this is happening to me too..
i have 1 internal hdd (raid 0) with 3 partitions and i pluged an extenral drive but im unable to do anything with it

So ferjero989, you didnt have Daemon tools installed?

What kind of USB drive did you install and on what operating system?

Win 9x requires you to manually install drivers, even if your using XP I recommend you try reinstalling or deleting the driver (for the specific usb drive)

does it show in the 'safely remove hardware" list?

never installed any optical drive emulator, not even a burning software yet :S ... this hapened in both xp and vista, it seems like in my case it might be the nvidia firewall software or chipset drivers.. i dunno
the USB drive was just an enclosure, it did work i another computer tho.. so it must be chipset drivers issue
the "device" will show in safely remove hardware as "mass storage device" but with no letter... i have a usb kingston pen drive (usb flash drive) and that works, it gets a letter and works and everything...
im pretty sure its drivers the thing is...
this is a msi k9n6gm series.. i have no idea how to get the oficial nvidia drivers for it...
i heard the network access manager software that comes with the nvidia chipset drivers are very buggy.. it might be the couse of the issue

ferjero989

first double click on the 'safely remove hardware' icon to bring up the window. select "display device componemnts" to view the hard drive letters, highlight the drive 'unknown mass storage device' (the one with no drive letter within the hierarchy) and click properties.
go to the drivers tab and uninstall the driver leaving the usb drive connected to the computer reboot the computer.

If the problem persists then uninstall your Nvidia chipset update or whatever it was you installed, If you have an Nvidia chipset driver CD then you might be able to use it to update your chipset utility automatically, otherwise dont update it, nvidia drivers are buggy if you dont have the exact one your specs require so Id leave it unless you are prompted somewhere.

windows will provide these drivers for you, if they dont work properly then choose "update driver" through the properties tab (like the example I gave you earlier). Let me know how you made out.

good luck