Intermittent Fault With Kingston 100 G2 USB Memory Stick

[deadevil13]

Hello all,

I have a Kingston 100 G2 USB memory stick (8GB - formatted with FAT32).

I use this stick a lot, and is it a work USB. Just recently my home PC has not been wanting to play ball with it.

This is what happens:

- I plug my stick into ANY USB port on the PC
- No automatic detection, no automatic drive letter assignment, not in Disk Management
- After 2 minutes OR a forced refresh in Disk Management, the device will detect
THEN, either
- The device shows up (is detected), drive letter assigned, and can be accessed as normal.
- Windows reports that the device needs to be re-formatted, and appears as a RAW file system in Disk Managment

Before you ask me to just re-format the disk (I do have backups!), read this:

- The memory stick works on any other PC/laptop fine (including my Win 7 x64 at work, XP Pro x86 on a laptop and in Fedora Linux - and every other PC/laptop it has been plugged into)
- My other memory stick (a Kingston DT1, 1GB) detects as normal - everytime.

So this means the following:

- The memory stick is fine. Its not defective.
- The USB Bus controllers on my HOME PC (the one with the problem) are working
- Disk Management service(s) are working as normal (correctly assigning drive letters)

The only odd thing I can see is in Device Manager, in which this keeps showing up:

WPD FileSystem Volume Driver (w/ Error 31)

I have never seen this before. It doesn't normally show up. I can only guess this is causing the problems?

What I have tried:
- Various ports on the PC
- Safely ejecting, and then reconnecting
- Uninstalling the device driver - Kingston 100 G2 USB driver.
- Uninstalling the device driver for the odd, problematic WPD FileSystem Volume Driver
- Disabling the device driver for the odd, problematic WPD FileSystem Volume Driver

My Configuration:
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 w/SP1
Intel i5 2500 @ 3.30Ghz
8GB RAM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was just wondering if anyone knew of this problem.

I'm going to continue trying to solve this myself, but any recommendations of things I can try are most welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Dan

 

[deadevil13]

Just giving you guys a running follow up of things I am trying.

I backed up all the files again, from one of the tries when it does connect and detect properly.

I then Safely Removed, and reconnected. The problematic 'You need to format this disk' (Disk management, File System: RAW) came up, I said okay to formatting the device. Windows built in formatter went a bit crazy, and then told me it was unable to perform the format.

Weird.

I also found this article - Correcting the DREADED Vista Problem - USB Device Not Reconigsed

And I have tried the suggested point the drivers manually task - which hasn't really done anything. Worth a try though.

I will say this, I did install TrueCrpyt when I got it. But the whole thing failed miserably, and I gave up. I have reformatted the drive since then using MiniTool Partition Wizard (Home Ed.) - and this seemed to make the device work. Up until now.

I remember when I set this up, it did something regarding mounting drive I: (which is the drive letter which the USB stick is auto-assigned). I shall try quickly, assigning it something further down the alphabet and see what happens.

FYI: I don't have TrueCrpyt installed anymore. So if it is causing any issues, then I'm guessing its remnants in the registry?

 

[deadevil13]

Just thought of something else quickly.

My drive lettering is as so:
C: - SYSTEM - STATIC HDD
D: - MUSIC - STATIC HDD
E: - VIDEO - STATIC HDD
F: - BLANK DISK - STATIC HDD
G: - DOCS/PICS - STATIC HDD
H: - DVD DRIVE - PHYSICAL DVDROM
J: - DVD DRIVE - PHSICAL DVDROM
K: - VIDEOS - STATIC HDD
L: - DVD DRIVE - VIRTUAL DRIVE

Weird, not really in any logical format.

[Edit]
I have re-arranged the drives so that letter I: is assigned to a physical DVD-ROM drive, however with the USB drive now auto-assigning itself to K: - and the problem still exists.

Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it don't.