Multiple-drive-letter-problem

[Multibooter]

SITUATION:

An old Inspiron 7500 laptop, with a USB 1.1 port, which is not being used. Inserted into the laptop is a USB 2.0 PCCard with 2 ports. Connected to the USB 2.0 PCCard are:

- an external DVD burner which uses the Genesys USB Mass Storage driver v1.63 (drive letter K:)

- an SDHC multi-card reader hama 55745 with a built-in 3-port USB hub and 4 slots (drive letters L,M,N,O), using the same Genesys driver.

Everything works fine... except:

PROBLEM:

When I go into Device Manager, and click on Refresh, the external USB burner starts spinning up, then 3 additional drive letters (P,Q,R) appear in My Computer, each one with the same drive name/CD name. Clicking again on Refresh will not increase or decrease the number of drive letters displayed in My Computer. The data of an inserted CD can actually be accessed under K,P,Q and R. After clicking on Refresh:

Device Manager -> CD-ROM shows 4x _NEC DVD_RW ND-3570A;

Device Manager -> Disk drives shows 4x Generic STORAGE DEVICE; [same as before, 1 for each card reader slot]

Device Manager -> Hard disk controllers shows 2x USB Storage Drive;

Device Manager -> USB controllers shows 1x Genesys USB Mass Storage Device and 1x USB Optical Device (among other usual entries)

When I have connected instead of the external DVD burner an external HDD (which also uses the same Genesys USB Mass Storage driver), together with the hama multi-card reader, the problem occurs again, but worse: The external HDD has 3 partitions; after clicking on Refresh in Device Manager, 9 additional drive letters appear, 3x 3 partitions, altogether 12 drive letters for the HDD.

The problem occurs only when the hama multi-card reader is connected with another USB device that uses the same Genesys driver. When I connect the multi-card reader and another external USB HDD, which uses another driver, everything is fine, no multiple-drive-letter-problem. When an external USB burner and an external USB HDD, which both use the same Genesys driver, are connected, no problem either. Only when the hama card reader plus another Genesys-driven USB device are connected.

The same problem also occurs with the hama multi-card reader 55350, which is very similar to the 55745, same Genesys driver, same Genesys chip GL819, but no built-in USB hub. So it can't be the built-in hub. The USB 2.0 PCCard uses Orangeware v2.4.1; I tried v2.1, still the same multiple-drive-letter-problem.

I noticed the multiple-drive-letter-problem initially when I clicked on the safely-remove-icon of the multi-card reader in the system tray. The 4 drive-letters of the card reader disappeared from My Computer, and in their place 9 new drive letters appeared for the 3 partitions of the connected USB HDD. The search for the possible causes of this problem led me to the Refresh button in Device Manager.

I have used Genesys-driven devices for several years without any problems, until I connected this multi-card reader. I have tried different older versions of the driver, but they all have the same multiple-drive-letter-problem (v1.52 of 2002, v1.59, v1.61, and the latest v1.63 of 2005) when the multi-card reader is connected. The multi-card reader displays 4 special icons in My Computer, which in v1.52 of the driver were still single-state, while in v1.59 and higher were 2-state-icons (card inserted/not inserted).

The only work-around I currently have is not to use the hama multi-card reader with other Genesys-driven devices. When all USB mass storage devices were driven by nusb 3.3, there was no multiple-drive-letter-problem with the hama multi-card reader. The safely-remove-icon of nusb, however, had 4 menu selection, one for each slot of the card reader, very cumbersome, while the safely-remove-icon of the Gensys driver had a single entry for the 4 slots.

I also installed nusb (=updated the system with the newer/other/WinME files contained in nusb), then de-activated nusb (renamed usbstor.inf), then installed the Genesys driver: same multiple-drive-letter-problem. So changing to the system files contained in nusb didn't help either.

Is this a bug in the Genesys driver? Is it a bug of Win98? Is it a virus? Is it a hardware problem of the GL819 chip? Can it be fixed? Any ideas?

Microsoft has several articles about "multiple drive letters", for Win2k and WinXP, but I didn't find anything for Win98:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/872949

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830752

Edited November 25, 2008 by Multibooter

[dencorso]

The classic multiple detection problem with Win 9x/ME is related to internal (ATAPI) Zip Disks: if one doesn't deactivate their detection by the BIOS, they get detected again by Windows all the same and one ends up with two different drive letters for a single Zip Drive...

So I think you must've been witnessing detection at multiple software levels. Try removing the Orangeware drivers and adding NUSB's generic USB 2.0 stack (i. e.: reinstall nusb 3.3 again, then rename usbstor.inf) and let's see what happens. But do save a full system partition image before doing it, just to remain on the safe side. Good luck!

Edited November 9, 2008 by dencorso

[Multibooter]

Try removing the Orangeware drivers and adding NUSB's generic USB 2.0 stack (i. e.: reinstall nusb 3.3 again, then rename usbstor.inf) and let's see what happens.

Hi dencorso,

I have done that, the Best Connectivity USB 2.0 PCCard was nicely recognized by nusb as "NEC uPD720101 USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller" (I was always wondering what chip was inside the card, neither Orangeware nor ChipGenius indicated it, nusb did identify it as a ...101 chip, I wasn't sure whether it was a ...101 or a ...102 chip). Unfortunately, the same multiple-drive-letter-problem. So the USB driver can definitely be excluded as the culprit.

Then I tried another USB 2.0 PCCard, an old Belkin card, nicely identified by nusb as "NEC uPD720100A USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller", first under the nusb USB driver, then, after a system restore, under the Orangeware 2.4.1 USB driver. Again, the same multiple-drive-letter-problem in both cases. So the USB 2.0 PC Card can also be excluded as the culprit.

But do save a full system partition image before doing it, just to remain on the safe side.

Your comment does well indicate that things might have become rocky otherwise. I also removed in Device Manager the built-in USB 1.1 controller. As a consequence the WLAN-stick attached to the USB 1.1 port wanted to be re-installed (incl. the complicated security settings), so this computer was without an Internet connection for a few minutes until I restored the system from backup. I had never de-activated the OrangeWare USB driver before, all SDHC card readers & all other USB devices which I have tried out with nusb were properly installed by nusb, without the prior removal of Orangeware. Why did Maximus Decimus recommend to "2.Remove ALL drivers USB 2.0 controllers."? This has major implications for the whole internet/WLAN setup if connecting via USB.

The classic multiple detection problem with Win 9x/ME is related to internal (ATAPI) Zip Disks: if one doesn't deactivate their detection by the BIOS, they get detected again by Windows all the same and one ends up with two different drive letters for a single Zip Drive... So I think you must've been witnessing detection at multiple software levels.

Also with external SCSI Zip and Jaz drives under DOS 6/Win95. The zip/jaz drivers "Iomega SCSI Utilities for DOS" had a duplicate drive letter problem which could be fixed via config.ini, Iomega's more automated zip/jaz drivers "guest.exe" didn't have this duplicate drive letter problem.

5 years ago, with CardWare v6.014, a DOS/Windows driver package for the CardBus controller [it didn't work for me; the MS counterpiece is at Device Manager -> PCMCIA socket -> Texas Instruments PCI-1225 CardBus Controller], Guest.exe recognized an external SCSI zip/jaz drive as follows:

- ok with an Adaptec 16bit 1460 SlimSCSI card

- duplicate drive letters were assigned with an Adaptec 1460B SlimSCSI card

- no drive letter was assigned with a 1480 SlimSCSI card

BTW the maker of this driver, Apsoft, still exists http://www.tssc.de/ the latest version is CardWare 7.0 for DOS thru Vista

I could well imagine that Genesys hasn't tested their driver on a Win98 laptop. I am away until Christmas from my desktop computer and only have my laptop currently, maybe I can then try out whether there is also a multiple-drive-letter-problem when the hama card reader is connected to a desktop, without a CardBus controller. On the laptop I still have driver v4.10.2222 by Microsoft [i.e. Win98SE version] of the Texas Instruments PCI-1225 CardBus Controller, does anybody know where to get a newer version?

Edited November 9, 2008 by Multibooter

[Multibooter]

First of all, thanks again for your help, dencorso.

The mulitple-drive-letter problem occurs only, and only when:

1) the multi-card reader and one or more other Genesys-driven USB mass storage devices (e.g. HDD or DVD-burner) are connected to the computer

AND

2) the Genesys-driven USB HDD/CD devices have drive letters assigned BEFORE the multi-card reader.

Example:

IF: USB HDD/burner (Local Disk/CD) are K,L,M and the multi-card reader is N,O,P,Q (Removable Disk) => multiple drive letter problem

IF: multi-card reader is K,L,M,N (Removable Disk) and USB HDD/burner (Local Disk/CD) are O,P,Q => Ok, no problem

I have tested 9 possible combinations/base cases, with both multi-card reader and Genesys-driven USB HDD/CD devices, connected already at power-on, to:

- the single port of the USB 1.1 controller

- ports 1 and 2 of the Belkin USB 2.0 PCCard (i.e. a 2nd USB controller chip)

- port 2 of the built-in USB hub (ports2-4) of the card reader (the HDD/CD burner only)

In more understandable terms, if the card reader was recognized first, everything was fine, except when both card reader and HDD/burner were connected to the ports of the USB 2.0 PCCard (a 2nd bug?). In all other cases the multiple-drive-letter-problem occurred.

I was also able to reproduce the error/ok situations, without the USB 2.0 PCCard inserted in the PCMCIA slot, by:

. connecting a Belkin 7-port-hub to the USB 1.1 controller

. then manually forcing the drive letter assignment when Win98 was up, by either inserting the multi-card reader or the HDD/burner first

This definitely excludes the USB 2.0 controller card as a cause of the problem; and reduces the likelihood that the multiple-drive-letter-problem was caused by the buggy Texas Instruments PCMCIA CardBus controller chip inside the laptop..

Work-arounds

I have come up with 3 possible work-arounds. These 3 work-arounds explain ALL possible situations where there was no multiple-drive-letter-problem. Any other connection resulted in a multiple-drive-letter-problem.

1) Piggy-back on built-in USB hub: I connect the Genesys-driven USB HDD/burner to the built-in hub of the multi-card reader. The multiple-drive-letter problem will then never occur, regardless of when the HDD/burner/multi-card reader are connected to the computer (at power-on, or when Win98 is already up). This is apparently because the card slots of the multi-card reader (as port 1??? - but one can copy between cards inserted into the card slots ?!?) are always recognized before the ports of the built-in hub (ports 2-4, as identified with ChipGenius under WinXP). This workaround is preferrable because it doesn't require thinking.

2) Using 2 different USB controllers: The Genesys-driven card reader is connected before power-on to the 1st USB controller recognized (in my case the USB 1.1 controller built into the lap) and the Genesys-driven HDD is connected to the 2nd USB controller (in my case the USB 2.0 Cardbus PCCard). This forces a drive letter assignment first to the card reader (on the first recognized USB controller), then to the HDD.

BTW, this work-around shows that it can be useful to have 2 USB controllers (e.g. one on the motherboard, the other as an add-on PCI or Cardbus card) in the computer: you can force a desired drive letter assignment in problem-situations.

3) Manually delayed connection: I connect the USB HDD/burner manually after power-on, when Win98 is up, AFTER the drive letters of the multi-card reader are displayed in My Computer. In other words, I force a desired drive letter assignment by physically connecting the HDD/burner later. In this way it is possible even to connect both multi-card reader and HDD/burner to the USB 2.0 PCCard without the multiple-drive-letter problem.

Causes of the problem

I have tried out several MS bugfixes, but that didn't help. The cause(s) of the multiple-drive-letter-problem are still unknown, it could still be a bug of the Genesys driver (why does it occur only with Genesys-driven devices, why does nusb work?), a bug of Win98 (Windows has lots of duplicate and multiple drive letter problems), a hardware problem (the laptop has a CardBus controller Texas Instruments PCI-1225 known for its bugs; the problem occured only with a Genesys chip), or an unknown virus.

USB multi-card readers are a special type of device with multiple "Removable Disks" in one physical device. Single USB Removable Disks (zip, jaz, LS-120, floppy) may have been well tested under Win98. But the only other multiple Removable Disk device which comes to my mind are SCSI towers with Removable Disks inside.

Any ideas about the cause(s) of this problem? Any fixes?

Edited November 12, 2008 by Multibooter

[jaclaz]

Did you try by any chance this :

http://www.msfn.org/board/Patched-IOSYS-98SE-t118119.html

jaclaz

[Multibooter]

Did you try by any chance this :

http://www.msfn.org/board/Patched-IOSYS-98SE-t118119.html

Thanks jaclaz, I just tried it, but it didn't fix it. Any other ideas?

Edited November 10, 2008 by Multibooter

[herbalist]

Do you have entries for USB drivers or devices in your autoexec.bat or config.sys?

When I loaded a driver for the CD drive in autoexec.bat, the CD drive was displayed twice in explorer.

[Multibooter]

Do you have entries for USB drivers or devices in your autoexec.bat or config.sys?

Thanks herbalist, I remmed out all possible entries, but the multiple-drive-letters still come up. A possibly similar bug with duplicate drive letters is described at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822763/

Regarding autoexec.bat: After each test which produces multiple-drive-letters, I shut down. Maybe 6 or 7 times after these tests, upon cold-booting, System Commander has come up with a message that autoexec.bat (I believe also 1 time config.sys) was modified. I have always selected Skip, meaning wipe out the modified file and replace it with the good file stored by System Commander, but this is suspicious. Maybe the next time I should look at it more closely.

Also, at least for the past 2 years, when I wanted to shut down the laptop, an unidentified process was sometimes hanging & prevented the shutdown (thick hourglass). Upon Alt - Ctl -Del a msg comes up "This program is not responding. It may be busy, waiting for a response or it may have stopped running." There is no program name displayed in this window, just the msg. Process Viewer doesn't display any unusual process. After terminating this mysterious process Windows usually shuts down ok. Kaspersky hasn't found anything, and 2-year-old malicius code should be detectable.

Trojans want to find a door, and this is a problems at a door (USB port). The last infection I had several years ago was with sp.exe, Trojan.Win32.Spooner.c. The Win98 symptom was that the printer wouldn't work properly, i.e. a problem at a door (parallel port), the trojan trying to get out thru the wrong door. I didn't find anything in google; would you exclude a virus/trojan as a cause of this multiple-drive-letter problem?

Edited November 11, 2008 by Multibooter

[herbalist]

would you exclude a virus/trojan as a cause of this multiple-drive-letter problem?

I haven't seen a virus or trojan cause that particular problem but I wouldn't rule it out either. I remember seeing somewhere that some USB flash drives were sold infected from the factory and infected the users PC as soon as they were plugged in. Did this problem show up when you first used a new USB device?

You mentioned the DVD and the card reader use the same driver. Any chance that some of the drivers files or registry entries were duplicated?

I'm not familiar with System Commander. Will it let you use shift during a restart and restart just Windows? If it will, you might try substituting empty copies of autoexec.bat and config.sys, then restart Windows and see if the duplicates are still there. Other than that, about all I can think of is restoring to an earlier state when you didn't have that problem, then add the USB and external devices one at a time. This would also rule out a virus/trojan as the cause.

I monitor all installs, updates, etc with Inctrl5, which gives me a record of what each install adds and changes. Assuming you can restore to a pre-problem state, you might use the earlier version Inctrl4 to monitor what's happening. It has a real time mode that only works on 9X systems. PCMag used to sell it, but it's around if you look for it.

Rick

[Sfor]

The BIOS USB drive support can cause the multiple drive letter problem, as well. My Asus EEE PC 900 is a perfect example. One drive letter comes from BIOS and is recognized by the Windows 98 as a MS-DOS mode drive, the other is through the Windows drivers.

Switching the BIOS USB support off solves the problem in most cases. But, the Asus EEE PC 900 BIOS does not let to do it.

[jaclaz]

Only thing you may try using I can think of is letter assigner:

Site went beserk:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080206033439/...s.com/LetAssig/

Missing 00 byte at end of the archive:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=2681&st=24

but cannot say if it will be of use.

jaclaz

[Sfor]

I've decided to play a bit with the Letter Assigner. The result is it is unable to remove a drive letter. All it can do is to replace it with some other drive letter. So, it is not possible to get rid of a duplicated drive letter problem with the Letter Assigner.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Sfor

[jaclaz]

I've decided to play a bit with the Letter Assigner. The result is it is unable to remove a drive letter. All it can do is to replace it with some other drive letter. So, it is not possible to get rid of a duplicated drive letter problem with the Letter Assigner.

Well, at least we tried.

But it's still better to have the same drive with two different letter assigned than having two same letters....

jaclaz

[Multibooter]

The BIOS USB drive support can cause the multiple drive letter problem, as well... Switching the BIOS USB support off solves the problem in most cases. But, the Asus EEE PC 900 BIOS does not let to do it.

Thanks Sfor, but the laptop with this multiple-drive-letter-problem is an old Dell Inspiron 7500, a top model of the year 2000, but its BIOS doesn't support booting from USB, no BIOS USB support. So this can't be the cause.

[Multibooter]

So, it is not possible to get rid of a duplicated drive letter problem with the Letter Assigner.

But it's still better to have the same drive with two different letter assigned than having two same letters....

Thanks for helping. I have added another work-around above, which may be useful with drive letter assignment in general.

BTW, there a 4 different drive letters displayed, e.g. K,R,U,Z and they all refer to the same partition K: of the HDD. Win98 assigns as many drive letters as it can, until it runs out of drive letters, but it doesn't hang. Norton Disk Doctor doesn't find any errors in these phoney multiple drive letters/partitions. Device Manager -> Disk drives: displays also these phoney drive letters, as 3 additional entries "Generic STORAGE DEVICE".

Getting closer to the solution?

Yesterday I found another single-card reader which uses the same Genesys driver as the multi-card reader, with amazing results:

1 ) There is NO multiple-drive-letter problem using this single-card reader together with the Genesys-driven HDD/DVD-burner. Therefore the multiple-drive-letter-problem is most likely caused by the incorrect handling of the 4 card slots in the multi-card reader, i.e. 4 card slots in ONE physical device.

nusb, which does not have the multiple-drive-letter problem, treats each slot of the multiple-card reader as a separate physical device: its safely-remove-icon in the System Tray [misnamed as systray.exe] has 4 menu selections, one for each slot [something like: "Stop USB Disk K:", "Stop USB Disk L:", etc], so one has to repeat the safely-remove-procedure 4 times in order to safely disconnect the multi-card reader. That is, for example, even if you don't own a CF card, you still have to remove the CF-reader every time you want to safely remove the multi-card reader, kind of a nuisance, but no multiple-drive-letter problem.

The Genesys driver, on the other hand, displays a single device for removal in its safely-remove-utility USBMonit.exe: "Stop Genesys USB Mass Storage Device K,L,M,O". After the multi-drive-letter problem occurred, USBMonit.exe displays something like "Stop Genesys USB Mass Storage Device K,L,M,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,X,Y,Z" [V,W, I have reserved for the virtual drives of Alcohol]

2 ) When both the single-card reader AND the multi-card-reader are connected at the same time, I get the same multiple-drive-letters for the single-card reader [=Removable Disk] as for the ext.HDD [="Local Disk"] or the external burner [="CD"], depending on the way I connected the single-card reader. The same work-arounds as described above apply to this single-card reader.

No more active Win98 support by Genesys?

I have found somewhere in the Internet a more recent version of the Genesys Win98 driver (March 2007), indicating Genesys Logic is possibly aware of this multiple-drive-letter-problem. They found the easiest workaround: the lines in geneuide.inf, which load the safely-remove-utility initiating the whole multiple-drive-letter problem --- are commented out. No more safe removal, no more multiple drive letters under Win98. Until somebody like Multibooter clicks on Device Manager -> Refresh ...

Also, to my amazement the Product IDs of my ext.HDD and ext.burner enclosures, which caused all this head-ache [VID_05E3&PID_0701 and VID_05E3&PID_0702], were not included in geneuide.inf anymore, either. But maybe they didn't know that connecting a single-card reader, with a Genesys chip inside, to a Genesys multi-card reader causes the same multiple-drive-letter problem.

Edited November 16, 2008 by Multibooter