Notes From Up High

Originally posted at Microsoft TechNet:

I am having the exact same problem with my (Sony Vaio and Toshiba Satellites), as described in this thread, and also have a problem with the firewire 750GB WD MyBook plugged in on boot, as described here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3329616&SiteID=17

First off let me state that I do not believe that it matters what the computer hardware is. This COULD be a Western Digital problem, but the universality I’ve seen, plus among the complaints from other users indicates to me that this is a OS or Driver problem.

While I have never successfully booted any XPSP3 computer with the firewire plugged in, I have been, on more than one occasion able to access the drive on multiple XPSP3 computers, but only after a frustrating round of plugging/unplugging the firewire cable and/or power cycle. Because I find this problem to be one of the most complicated, confounding problems I’ve ever witnessed, I will provide excurciating detail for how I’m able to make it work.

I claim no awareness on what I am doing to make it work, I have just found a brute force method that with patience, produces functional results. Every instance starts by booting the computer with the firewire UNPLUGGED. In every case, I have opened “My Computer”, Device Manager & Services MMC plugins, and Safely Remove Hardware Wizard. The steps are unaffected if there are other USB devices connected or other software loaded.  Each time, I insure that the Logical Disk Administrative Service and Logical Disk Manager services and their dependants are running.

Once boot is completed, I plug in the MyBook firewire HD WDH1CS7500

In Device Manager, there will be WD MyBook IEEE SBP2 Device with the yellow exclamation point.

Under Properties>General tab the Device Status window indicates Code 10 error. Above that I see the following:

WD My Book IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device
Device Type: Disk Drives
Manufacturer: (Standard Disk drives)
Location: LUN 0

Under Properties>Policies—**I will explain further down**

Under Properties>Volumes tab there is no data displayed. Clicking the Populate button

results in the following dialog box error error after a brief pause:

“Volume information for this disk cannot be found. This may happen if the disk is a 1394 or a USB device on a Windows 2000 machine.”

Under Properties>Driver tab:
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Date: 7/1/2001
Driver Version: 5.1.2535.0

Under Properties>Details tab::
Device Instance Id
SBP2\WD&MY_BOOK&LUN0\0090A9FFAE71BAB9
Hardware Ids
SBP2\WD&My_Book&CmdSetId104D8&GenDisk
SBP2\WD&My_Book&CmdSetId104D8
SBP2\WD&My_Book&LUN0
SBP2\GenDisk
GenDisk

In the Safely Remove Hardware wizard, I also see WD MyBook IEEE SBP2 Device, but there are no nested device components displayed (even with the Display device components check box checked). If connected other USB devices will show the full device component tree.

In Disk Management DISK 2 will indicate Healthy (Active) but with no drive letter assignment.

Right clicking Properties doesn’t illict a response.
Right Click and selecting “Change Drive Letter and Paths…“>”Add…“, then selecting

“Assign the following drive letter” radio button (picking G:) , then clicking OK button yields the following dialog box error:

LOGICAL DISK MANAGER
“The operation did not complete because the partition or volume is not enabled. To enable the partition or volume, restart the computer.”

From this point Going back to Device Manager>”WD MyBook IEEE SBP2 Device Properties>Volumes tab>Populate, the aforementioned error (Volume information….on a windows 2000 machine) does not occur. What DOES display is the following:

Disk: Disk 2
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Style: Master Boot Record (MBR)
Capacity: 715402
Unallocated space: 0MB
Reserved Space: 0MB

In the Capacity column, I will see the drive capacity (715402MB) but under Volume I do not see a drive letter.

All other tabs behave as described prior….ESPECIALLY the Properties>Policies tab. If I click on this tab before or after fiddling with Disk Management, the window freezes, MMC freezes, and Rundll32.exe no longer responds. The only way to resolve this problem is to reboot.  Upon the next boot (FIREWIRE UNPLUGGED) I will go through a different iteration of what’s described above.

Same things happen, after boot is finished, plug in firewire, I get lights and sound from the MyBook drive, and I’ll get error “CODE 10″ from the SBP2 device in Device Manager. HOWEVER THERE IS NO DEVICE LISTING IN THE SAFELY REMOVE HARDWARE WIZARD.

From within Device Manager, I disable then re-enable the WD MyBook IEEE 1394 SBP2 device, upon renabling, the device reports under Properties>General tab>Device Status that it’s working properly. When I click on Volumes tab>Populate the drive makes an audible read indication but the “Volume information…Windows 2000 Machine” dialog box error returns. This time under General tab>Device status I get “CODE 43“.

At thispoint, I’ll unplugging the HD FIREWIRE cable. The SBP2 device disappears from Device Manager. Replugging the device produces NO further recognition of the SBP2 device, even with a Scan for Hardware Changes.

NOW: HERE’s THE TRICK: WITH THE FIREWIRE STILL PLUGGED INTO THE MACHINE, I power cycle the MyBook hard drive by removing the DC powersupply from the back of the drive, then plug it back in. The drive makes the same blinks and sounds, and the Device Manager will blink as it once again recognizes WD MyBook IEEE 1394 SBP2 device. However, after a short pause, My Computer refreshes and indicates that the hard drive is assigned a drive letter and is accessible.

When I click on Device Properties>Polices, I now can select one of the two Write Cacheing and Safe Removal options (where Optimize for Quick Removal is enabled by default) When I open the Safely Remove Hardware wizard from the systray, I see the WD My Book IEEE 1394 SBP2 device, but this time I see “Generic Volume (H: ) on Volume Manager”

Insane? Yes. Frustrating? *** Yes. A solution…technicall no, but once I get the drive to read, I TRY NOT TO TURN OFF THE COMPUTER

I hope this long, insane, description offers some additional clues to resolving the problem!