USB HARD DRIVE ACCESS PROBLEM

With
* Acronis TI v.9.1 build 3,718.
* Win.XP Home


I have a combination of hard drives attatched to my laptop via USB-IDE adaptors.

1 - HTE721080G9AT00
2 - HTS541060G9AT00 USB Device
3 - HTS541080G9AT00 USB Device < Problem drive
4 - Maxtor One Touch III USB Device
4 - MELCO INC. 1394MEL-HD DRIVE IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device
6 - TOSHIBA MK8025GAS USB Device

The problem Hitachi 80GB drive used to work fine when it was installed as the boot/OS disk inside the laptop.

I took the HTS54 drive out and replaced it with HTS54, so HTS54 became free.

Trouble is I cannot access HTS54 from any of my 3 USB adaptors.

When I connect it, the PC chimes "da daa" and announces the new found USB device/drive by baloon pop-up.

It shows in Device Manager Disk drives list as #3:

However the Device Status says:
"No drivers are installed for this device.
If you are having problems with this device, click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter."

After some time it may or may not chenge to:
"This device is working properly..."

In addition, some partition & disk related utilities I have cannot see the disk or report cannot read sector 1 (MBR).
Partition Magic will start when in 'No drivers are installed' state, but won't start in the 'This device is working properly' state. It crashes: "Error #100 PARTITION TABLE IS BAD"

I suspected something was corrupt so I installed it back into the laptop. There was nothing wrong, "all systems functioning normally", including read/write access to all sectors!

I put it through 'Drive Fitness Test' (provided by the manuracturer - Hitachi) and found nothing wrong.
I decided to wipe it anyway so cleared the MBR to 0's.

But now still have the problem of can't acces by USB.


** NOW GET THIS **

After took HTS54 out of my laptop previously, and before I tried to connect it via USB, I installed Acronis TIW on the new HTE72.

I see the added Driver Details include:
snapman.sys
snaprtt.sys

I googled snapman.sys and found a thread in this forum relating to these files affecting drive through-put performance, and not being removed by TIS un-install.

Also from a different thread:
"Please note that the SnapAPI module is in charge of all I/O operations on the hard disk of Acronis software working in Windows. SnapAPI.exe file updates the SnapApi module. Usually the latest build contains the most current version of the Acronis Drivers. Prior to the release of the next build it might be more recent Acronis Drivers present. This package also contains some fixes on I/O operations level so it might help in some cases."
(from Aleksandr Isakov, Acronis Suppport)

So... I'm wondering if there is any contention going between the windows 'new-found USB mass storage device' and the Acronis TIW snap drivers ?
XP obviously knows the device is connected but the OS cannot access it!


* Note: I did previously trial Acronis DiskDirector, then deleted it.


Any advice ?

Mike.

 

More...

I did a registry search for 'HTS54108' and see multiple entries, as well as my other drives.

It looks like when a new PnP device is found, entries are generated and inserted into the registy.
Wondering if there is anything messed up in there re. my problem drive, and needs a clean up?

Something to think about.


Mike.