GA7VAXP USB Sticks do not work

Alex wrote:
> I have a self built system containing a GA7VAXP motherboard. I have a
> number of USB peripherals which have all been working fine (Zip drive,
> digital camera, pda, printer, and joystick). However, recently I
> discovered that USB sticks refuse to work on it.

What OS?
 >> Stay informed about: GA7VAXP USB Sticks do not work 

I had not come accross this article, but having looked at it I have
covered most of the points:

Malfunctioning or incorrectly configured hardware: The first stick I
tried was brand new. When it would not work I tried it on my
grandmothers laptop (also windows XP) and it worked fine. When I
returned it to the store for a refund they tried it on a computer there
and it worked fine. They were reluctant to give a refund, but I did
persuade them. The other stick I have just tried is one my aunt uses
regularly. Also, I looked in the device manager and the device shows
up an entry in the power tab.

Malfunctioning, incorrectly configured, or missing device driver: With
the first stick I tried the OS would tell me I needed to restart the
computer to complete installation of the hardware when I plugged it in,
but I do not get that with the current one.

Mismatched cabling: It is being plugged straight into the port so no
issue there.

Out-of-date firmware or BIOS: This could be an issue but there is no
indication on the Gigabyte website of any firmware upgrade for this
board to fix USB problems.

Incorrectly configured root hub: The root hub has an IRQ assigned.

It mostly appears to be fine on the hardware side. There is one
oddity. If I go to "Computer Management | Logical Drives" the system
appears to hang, but as soon as I pull the stick out it immediately
comes to life and shows the disc drives. Apart from that though, it
seems to come up OK in the device manager, it just does not want to
show as a drive in Windows.

Alex
 >> Stay informed about: GA7VAXP USB Sticks do not work 

Unfortunately I cannot try that. I wrote my previous post in a bit of
a hurry and got one small fact wrong. When I wrote "Computer
Management | Logical Drives" I should have written "Computer Management
| Disk Management".

When I try to go to Disk Management, the computer hangs for ages. If I
remove the USB stick it immediately comes up showing the disk drive,
the DVD drive, and the CD-ROM drive. However, the USB stick does not
show up (understandably as it is no longer plugged in). If I leave the
USB stick in place the computer eventually gives me a message that I
should have written down but did not. It is something about the
firewall blocking the connection, which makes absolutely no sense
whatsoever. I tried disabling the firewall (the one built into XP) but
it made no difference.
 >> Stay informed about: GA7VAXP USB Sticks do not work 

Alex wrote:
> It mostly appears to be fine on the hardware side. There is one
> oddity. If I go to "Computer Management | Logical Drives" the system
> appears to hang, but as soon as I pull the stick out it immediately
> comes to life and shows the disc drives. Apart from that though, it
> seems to come up OK in the device manager, it just does not want to
> show as a drive in Windows.

There is a well documented problem withWindows XP drive letter mapping.

Drives that are mapped to external volumes (i.e. network drives) can
conflict with PnP USB disk drives. XP automatically assigns a drive
letter to a USB disk, without checking the drive map to see if the next
free letter is really free.

One suggestion is to map the USB drive to the B: drive -- since it is
rairly used nowadays. To do this you need to delete any existing
conflicting mappings, plug in the drive, then change the drive letter
from whatever XP assigns to B: (in Computer Management / Disk Management
/ right-click All Tasks / Change Drive Letter). Then manually restore
any required network mappings.

See if this helps.
 >> Stay informed about: GA7VAXP USB Sticks do not work 

I've cracked it!! The solution was rather bizarre though. Thank you
for your comments Travis, they helped me to focus on what was
important.

I decided to check out the message I had been getting from Disk
Management. After plugging in the USB stick, going to Computer
Management, clicking on Disk Management, and then waiting for ages; I
eventually got the following message: "The Disk management console
failed to connect to the remote computer because the Disk Management
remoting service is not in the Windows Firewall exception list. Add
the Disk Management remoting service (dmremote.exe) to the Windows
Firewall exception list and try again."

So I opened the Windows Firewall, went to the exceptions tab, clicked
"Add", clicked "Browse...", located "dmremote.exe" in the system32
folder and added it to the list. The USB stick then worked fine.

Just to make sure, I unchecked "dmremote.exe" in the exception list,
restarted the computer and plugged the stick in and it behaved as
previously. I then removed the stick, added "dmremote.exe" back to the
exception list, restarted the computer, and the stick worked fine.

Bizzare eh! I guess the next question for those of us with an
insatiable curiosity is "Why the hell does the firewall interfere with
USB sticks and why does it not interfere with any of my other USB
devices (especially the ZIP drive which is another form of USB mass
storage device).

Anyway, thanks again for your suggestions.

Alex
 >> Stay informed about: GA7VAXP USB Sticks do not work 

Alex wrote:
> Bizzare eh! I guess the next question for those of us with an
> insatiable curiosity is "Why the hell does the firewall interfere with
> USB sticks and why does it not interfere with any of my other USB
> devices (especially the ZIP drive which is another form of USB mass
> storage device).

Hi Alex -

Glad I could be of assistance.

You've asked a really good question! Googling around on the subject
wasn't very productive, so if you come across an answer to your question
please post it here so we'll all be able to learn from the experience.

Have a great weekend!
 >> Stay informed about: GA7VAXP USB Sticks do not work