Solved USB external hard drive and usb stick win 8.1 not working

somepony

New Member
Messages
12
hi,

my seagate external hard drive and my kingston usb stick suddenly stopped working on my win 8.1 notebook. i have been using them both for months without any problems and they still work perfectly fine on other (windows 7 and vista) computers. My notebooks hardware should be fine because my samsung galaxy s3, connected to my win 8.1 notebook via usb (as media device) works.

i suspect this sudden change of behavior is related to currently released windows updates which got installed some days ago - but i am not sure. i also found some people experiencing similar usb storage device related problems since last week and/or last windows updates on the web. for example here and here.

more detailed description of problem: when i connect the external hard drive to my notebook via usb, it gets powered up (it starts spinning, but shortly after that gets powered off/shut down). when i connect my usb stick, its led does not start to light or flash/blinking. both are showing up in the device manager folder "Other devices" with yellow exclamation mark as "Desktop" (which is the hd) and "DT Rubber 3.0" (the stick). the hardwareIDs are USB\VID_0BC2&PID_3300&REV_0130 (=hd) and USB\VID_0951&PID_168E&REV_0100 (=stick)

UPDATE:

i uninstalled all recent windows updates including the ones dating back to 11.11.2014 (date published). now my usb hd and stick are working again! so i really think that one of this updates is responsible. i'll try to determine which one is it exactly and post it here when i find out.

thx for your time :)
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64 bit
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus G750JH-T4080H
    CPU
    Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4 GHz
    Motherboard
    Intel HM87 (Lynx Point)
    Memory
    original 8192 MB, DDR3 1600 MHz (dual channel), upgraded to 24 GB with Kingston Ram
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M - 4096 MB, Core: 823 MHz, Memory: 1250 MHz, DirectX 11, GDDR5
    Sound Card
    original: Realtek ALC282 @ Intel Lynx Point PCH - and: Edirol fa-66
    Hard Drives
    Liteonit LMT-256M6S, 256 GB SSD, second hard drive: HGST HTS541010A9E680, 1000 GByte HDD, 5400 rpm
    Mouse
    razor usb
    Browser
    firefox
    Antivirus
    avast (current version)
UPDATE 2:

i installed all the updates including the most recent ones again except following one:

November 2014 update rollup for Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2

this is a 800 MB optional, not important update. in the update description there are some mentions about USB stuff. as my usb hd and stick are now working perfectly fine (with all updates installed except this one) i am going to assume that this update really caused the problem.

i mark this as solved :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64 bit
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus G750JH-T4080H
    CPU
    Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4 GHz
    Motherboard
    Intel HM87 (Lynx Point)
    Memory
    original 8192 MB, DDR3 1600 MHz (dual channel), upgraded to 24 GB with Kingston Ram
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M - 4096 MB, Core: 823 MHz, Memory: 1250 MHz, DirectX 11, GDDR5
    Sound Card
    original: Realtek ALC282 @ Intel Lynx Point PCH - and: Edirol fa-66
    Hard Drives
    Liteonit LMT-256M6S, 256 GB SSD, second hard drive: HGST HTS541010A9E680, 1000 GByte HDD, 5400 rpm
    Mouse
    razor usb
    Browser
    firefox
    Antivirus
    avast (current version)
Back
Top