SanDisk USB Flash Drive Dosen't Disply Properly in Disk Management

[tjg79]

Hi,

I have a couple of SanDisk 8GB Cruzer Micro USB Flash Drives that don't display consistently in Win 7 Disk Management. They are labeled SANDISK 1 and SANDISK 2. They appear properly as a drive icon with SANDISK 2 drive letter M or SANDISK 1 drive letter K in Win 7 Computer - Devices with Removable Storage, but intermittently appear properly in Win 7 Disk Management. For example, in the Volume list in the top window, I see only an disk icon under volume, nothing under File System, but Layout, Type, Status, Capacity, Free Space and the remainder of the columns appear normal.

Also, in the graphical display in the lower portion of the center section below the Volume list section, the left column appears normal, but the graphical portion to the right only displays 7.50GB, Healthy (Primary Partition), the label and drive letter are not displayed. Also, when I right click the displayed device in the left column, I get a pop-up entitled SanDisk Cruzer USB Device Properties, but when I click the Volumes Tab, I can't select the Volume and click Properties, because only a drive icon and capacity are displayed, the Propertied button is greyed out.

Interestingly, the above description is for when I have only one of the USB devices plugged into the system. When I plug the second USB device into the system, it displays properly without any issues. I don't think it's a device issue, because I can get either to display properly if it's the second USB device attached as indicated in the attached screen shots.





Also, as depicted in the second screen shot, if I unplug the problem device, it will clear from the lower section, but the drive icon and information doesn't clear from the Volume list section. You can see the two icons with missing information, because I plugged the device back in. They are for the same USB device. In this case, SANDISK 2.

Is there a solution to his issue?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards

 

[Slartybart]

Do you have daemon tools installed? If yes, uninstall it, there are known issues.

 

[tjg79]

Do you have daemon tools installed? If yes, uninstall it, there are known issues.

I don't have it installed. Could it be a similar program causing the issue?

Regards

 

[Slartybart]

I'm not sure. I saw a number of OD drives and thought you might have virtual drives, many people use Daemon tools.

So do you have a virtual OD app? Sometimes they're refereed to as ISO reader/writers.

Please post the following system information: Speccy snapshot

---

How to publish a Speccy snapshot:
Click on the Speccy file menu and select Publish Snapshot. This method removes sensitive information and provides you with a link to the report.

Copy the link returned from Publish Snapshot and paste it in a post on this thread so members have more information to better assist you.

Thanks

Speccy snapshot of my machine: http://speccy.piriform.com/results/CHlegp43qppad1Ua8dOLDAj

 

[tjg79]

My snapshot is on the link below.

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/gOX5VkDKTLvPqZg10gWHg8V

I did see the following near the end of the report or snapshot:

daemonu.exe (2556)
Local 127.0.0.1:2559: LISTEN

I do have ImgBurn and ISO Recorder installed.

I can remove them one at time to see if anything is resolved.

Let me know if you see anything that's likely causing trouble

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards

 

[tjg79]

The daemonu.exe file appears to part of the NVIDIA update program.

 

[tjg79]

Sometimes when I open Disk Management, everything is displayed as depicted in the screen shot above. But, lately it's been more likely than not that it doesn't.

I do have TSST ODD Firmware LiveUpdate installed and running. It's a program to update the TSST DVD player/burner firmware.

Disk 0 is an Intel RST RAID-5 array composed of three Seagate 500GB SATA drives.
Disk 1 is a component of the magicJack USB device.
Disk 2 is the SanDisk USB flash drive with U3 enabled.
Disk 3 is the same as Disk 2.
CD-ROM 0 is a Pioneer DVD drive.
CD-ROM 1 is a TSST DVD drive.
CD-ROM 2 is a component of the magicJack USB device.
CD-ROM 3 is a component of the SanDisk USB flash drive with U3 enabled.
CD-ROM 4 is the same as CD-ROM 3.

CD-ROM drives 2 through 4 are virtual ODs.


Regards

 

[patio]

Magic Jack is the culprit here...it creates it's own virtual drives and plays havoc with Disk Management.

 

[Slartybart]

Thanks for the additional information.

I know nothing about magicJack, so I'll defer to patio.
I also know nothing about U3, but found this on Sandisk support:

U3 Launchpad End Of Life Notice
Why can't I download the U3 applications? Is U3 Launchpad still available?
U3 technology has reached end of life. SanDisk began phasing out support for U3 Technology in late 2009.

U3 was originally developed to enable downloading portable applications to run from flash drives without installing on a computer. Currently, all U3 application download servers supporting the U3 Central Downloads and Cruzer Download Wizard features of U3 Launchpad have been taken offline. You may receive an 'internet not detected' error if you try to use these features. Since the U3 applications are no longer available for download, SanDisk recommends uninstalling the U3 Launchpad.

Below are links to article with instructions on removing U3 Launchpad.

Removing U3 Launchpad on a PC

How that affects your disk management I do not know. Boy sure are a lot of things I don't know, eh?

So... if that is the U3 you reference...

I would recommend disabling it. If that resolves the issue great! If not, I'd follow patio's implied suggestion of removng magic jack. If that resolves the issue, then you have your answer - if not we can look at it again.

Bill

 

[tjg79]

I don't think it's the magicJack, because I've had the device since 2009. It's my impression that the issue I'm having is more recent.

I also don't think it's the U3 Launchpad installed on the SanDisk Cruzer Micro for the same reason I don't suspect it's the magicJack.

Is there a way to use something like System Internals to observe what is causing the conflict or issue?

Both the magicJack and the U3 Launchpad are useful to me. Before I would think about disabling or removing the device or devices, I would like to see some convincing information that one of these programs is the culprit.

What makes it even harder is the fact that it's an intermittent condition, works properly sometimes, and the SanDisk USB Cruzer Micros are not normally attached to my system. I only use them for unusual situations like copying all my data before an OS removal with subsequent new clean install. Or, taking something to be printed somewhere else.

Thanks for the assistance.

Regards

 

[Slartybart]

Other software and services have been updated.

If you use the flash drives for backup, then you don't need U3.

Are you familiar with Sysinternals? There's quite a learning curve, but yes you might pinpoint the issue.

What has been offered is fairly simple to test - that's where you'll get convincing information. But these are your decisions. Hope you find a solution, that's all I can think of right now.

 

[tjg79]

Other software and services have been updated.

If you use the flash drives for backup, then you don't need U3.

Are you familiar with Sysinternals? There's quite a learning curve, but yes you might pinpoint the issue.

What has been offered is fairly simple to test - that's where you'll get convincing information. But these are your decisions. Hope you find a solution, that's all I can think of right now.

The U3 Lauchpad has some special applications that are useful to me. I don't think it's causing the issue, but I would like to confirm that with something like Sysinternals.

I'm at the beginning of the learning curve on Sysinternals. I think it's a powerful tool. That's why I think it could pinpoint the issue. I've got a lot of reading to do before I can effectively use that tool on my own.

I'll remove the magicJack and see if I can still get the SanDisk USBs to not display properly in Disk Management. If I can duplicate the issue with the magicJack off the system, then I think that would confirm that the magicJack device is not causing the issue.

There was an unresolved bug in the magicJack software in Win 7 that I reported to magicJack tech support sometime ago and they were supposed to refer it to engineering. I started a thread on that issue, but no one responded. I contacted magicJack tech support yesterday to follow-up and they indicated that they had a major system update this past Tuesday that resolved a lot of issues. I checked the bug and it appears to be resolved.

What I noticed about the magicJack software in Win 7 was that it changed the Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework service startup from automatic to manual every time the magicJack device was removed and reinstalled, or just installed on the system with the system running. That issue appears to be resolved. When the Windows Driver Foundation service was in manual startup, I would get Event 219, Kernel-PnP error from a driver not loading on presumably the first attempt. If there were other USB devices attached, when the magicJack wasn't, the manual startup for that service would cause a similar error for that device. It seemed to cause the error one time for the first USB device attached to the system that it encountered. The only way to resolve this issue was to attach the magicJack device and let it load its software and then go into Services and manually change the Windows Driver Foundation service back to automatic start. It would stay that way until the magicJack device was removed and installed again. That issue now appears to be resolved; no more manually changing the service after each magicJack install.

Any other issues have been blamed on the magicJack device in the past should be duplicated now to confirm they're still valid now that the magicJack software system has had a major fix.

I've just removed the "free" Nero and Roxio applications that come with a DVD drive. These applications are the stripped down versions of the full product that have utilities for CD/DVD burning, label making, players, and other utilities. When I bought my DVD drives, Win 7 hadn't been released. I noticed I was getting a few Information posts in the Windows Log for the Applications that some component of these applications couldn't find a file or something, so I deleted the programs to resolve those issues.

Thanks for your help.

Regards