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USB 3.0 Compatibility on Windows 8.1 32-bit?


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Posted (edited)

Hello,

I've been a bit lost with USB 3.0 lately. In this case, I had to downgrade my Windows 10 installation to Windows 8.1 on my Dell Inspiron 20 Model 3044 because Windows 10 was too crash-happy and struggled with basic tasks. On Windows 10, I could access my Sandisk 256gb USB 3.0 flash drive but Windows 8 prompts me that I must format the flash drive just like Windows XP would...

How do I get this working? Intel's website only holds a 64 bit version of the USB 3.0 driver? Is there a way I can get the driver from a Windows 10 installation? Attempting to use Mint Linux in this case does not solve the issue either: the Linux OS cannot see the flash drive.

Edited by FantasyAcquiesce

Posted (edited)
On 11/28/2022 at 6:23 AM, D.Draker said:

This driver's executable does not work. It states I do not have the system requirements.

Edited by FantasyAcquiesce
Posted (edited)
On 11/30/2022 at 6:27 AM, FantasyAcquiesce said:

This driver's executable does not work. It states I do not have the system requirements.

Then it must me something wrong with your system. Because win 8.1 must have them by default !

win 8.1 has its native USB3.0 drivers. This is the official statement from Intel.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005537/software/chipset-software.html

Windows* 8, Windows* 8.1, and Windows® 10 have a native in-box USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 driver.

Intel isn't releasing a specific Intel® USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 eXtensible Host Controller Driver for Windows 8, 8.1, or 10.

Those I gave you, are only meant to upgrade the existing/native win 8.1 drivers.

Edited by D.Draker
put slash instead of comma.
Posted

Hmmm...I wonder why. Maybe it is because I am using Windows 8.1 Embedded (my system is low-end and even weaker than a duo 2 T7200) , but I doubt that version of Windows 8.1 would be much different compared to stock versions.

Posted
3 hours ago, FantasyAcquiesce said:

Hmmm...I wonder why.

Well. I want to help you, let's try . Was it a clean installation ? 

Embedded or not - doesn't matter, all editions have the driver out-of-the-box. Not need to configure.

Posted (edited)
14 hours ago, D.Draker said:

Well. I want to help you, let's try . Was it a clean installation ? 

Embedded or not - doesn't matter, all editions have the driver out-of-the-box. Not need to configure.

I guess I might be out of luck then. All my USB 2.0 hardware with Windows 8.1, 7, Vista, and XP all read the USB 3.0 (3.2?) flash drive as something that needs to be formatted...

Is accessing a USB 3.x device on non-Windows 10 devices and simply recycling an old laptop for modern purposes too much to ask for? ;O;

Edited by FantasyAcquiesce
Posted
On 11/28/2022 at 5:31 AM, FantasyAcquiesce said:

Windows 8 prompts me that I must format the flash drive

There's your answer: It can read the drive, just doesn't support the existing format. What file system is on the drive now?

 

Posted (edited)

Maybe the issue is connected with the different way USB "Mass Storage" devices are handled in Windows 10 (as compared to previous Windows, i.e. multiple partitions visible as opposed to single partition)?

Is that stick partitioned or not (direct volume or "superfloppy")?

And if it is partitioned, is it MBR or GPT "style"?

AFAIK USB 3.0 devices are (transparently) compatible with USB 2.0 ports, they will only be slower in data transfer.

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
Posted

Access the the USB disk with a hex editor like WinHex and see if you can interpret its contents. If so, then you can image it and recover the files.

Posted (edited)

Thank you all for the replies!

On 12/2/2022 at 9:33 AM, D.Draker said:

I once had such type of error. In the end, it was a dying stick with multiple error blocks.

Could you try another device ?

On 12/1/2022 at 8:32 AM, jaclaz said:

Maybe the issue is connected with the different way USB "Mass Storage" devices are handled in Windows 10 (as compared to previous Windows, i.e. multiple partitions visible as opposed to single partition)?

Is that stick partitioned or not (direct volume or "superfloppy")?

And if it is partitioned, is it MBR or GPT "style"?

AFAIK USB 3.0 devices are (transparently) compatible with USB 2.0 ports, they will only be slower in data transfer.

jaclaz

I found out I still had an old USB 3.0 flash drive and...that is backwards compatible with Windows XP, Vista, etc.. I think the issue here is my modern sandisk flash drive holds the newer USB 3.2 version rather than just plain ol' USB 3.0 despite the label. Windows confirms it's a USB 3.2 gen 1 device.

Hmmm, I am definitely not sure of its partitioning. I would assume MBR because it's Windows' default? Not sure if this is relevant but I do recall formatting this hard disk on Linux a while back. Not a single computer could even recognize the flash drive anymore besides Linux, then I reformatted it and it fixed things back at the time (could use flash drive on modern PCs).

Edited by FantasyAcquiesce
Posted

I recently bought a SanDisk 128 GB flash drive, it came formatted with FAT32 file system, with SanDiskMemoryZone.apk (Android app) + PDF about it in the root directory. I reformatted it to exFAT on Windows 10 through Explorer, works fine on Windows XP besides all newer OS.

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Since you have Linux, maybe you can show us some information from GParted or some other utility, both device information and partition layout, perhaps we can spot something fishy.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Update.

I've gotten access to a device that could hold all the files on the flash drive then formatted it. It now works with Windows XP machines and the rest :)

Hmmm, but this is still worth questioning what Linux (I think Mint Linux) had done to my flash drive to render it unusable on any machine older than Windows 10. It's quite unexpected.

  • 4 weeks later...

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