USB 2.0 Controller Hangs Win7 Install/Boot

[Sliderttu]

OK, I had the issue that several people have had with windows hanging at the "Starting Windows" Screen. I discovered that disabling the USB 2.0 Controller in BIOS allowed me to finish the install, and boot into windows normally. I re-enabled the controller and booting into windows hangs at the same place as before...turning it back off fixed it again.

My problem is that my only disk drive is a USB external drive, and I will probably be doing some file transfers using USB...I need the speed. Installing windows took a LONG time at USB 1.1.

Flashing to new BIOS and running windows update will be tried today to see if that will solve the issue but I wanted to post to see if anyone had some ideas that I hadn't thought of.

System Info:
Win7 x86 Pro from MSDN, burned with USB/DVD tool provided by Microsoft
Pegatron IPX7A-ION Motherboard
Intel Atom 330
1x2GB SODIMM RAM
USB External DVD-ROM/CD-RW Slot Load Drive
7" Lilliput Touch Screen (VGA)

Note: I had XP running great before installing Windows 7

Thanks in advance!

 

[kegobeer]

Definitely update your BIOS, and see if there are any Windows 7 chipset drivers available.

 

[Sliderttu]

This has become very frustrating. After wrestling with the BIOS update utility that came with NO instructions (luckily I know how to use command prompt to pass commands), I arrived at "This program must run in MS-DOS mode." I found how to do this in previous versions of windows, but not windows 7. Any suggestions?

Windows update did nothing to solve the problem.

The boot hangs on loading disk.sys or classpnp.sys. Disk.sys is the last file to show in the list while booting in safe mode, classpnp.sys is the next file in the queue. So I am not sure if it hangs while loading disk.sys or directly after.

Any ideas would be awesome, I am about ready to throw XP back on...

 

[kegobeer]

Are there any chipset drivers available from the motherboard manufacturer?

 

[Sliderttu]

After some more trouble shooting, I have narrowed the problem down to my USB hub, my usb external disk drive, or both.

Windows recognizes the disk drive just fine in USB 1.1. Unplugging the hub and enabling USB 2.0 allows the computer to boot fine. Plugging in the hub after windows boots causes several "This device could perform faster.." messages. I am using a new belkin 7-port usb 2.0 hub.

I have a...unique...set up so I was hesitant to start unplugging things but decided it was time to. My hub is powered and on a 10ft usb extension. I had to set it up like this because my optical drive (powered only by a single usb port) is far away from my pc and the length of the cord caused too much resistance for the drive to operate properly. Could the 10 ft extension be causing the issue? Be reminded that xp handled it just fine...

More trouble shooting will be done tomorrow in the daylight.

Edit: I have downloaded and installed the latest chipset drivers from nvidia. No change in the problem :\

 

[Sliderttu]

Update: Definitely has something to do with the USB hub. Windows loads perfectly fine...as long as I don't plug in a keyboard or mouse to the hub...weird. The disk drive works fine from the hub, both keyboard and mouse work fine plugged into a port on the computer. Keyboard and mouse also work fine if plugged in AFTER windows loads. The keyboard works fine in BIOS.

The keyboard and mouse I have been using are not part of a set. They are made by two different manufacturers at two very different times. Both work fine through the hub when used on my main desktop pc, the only difference is that I am using Win7 Pro x64.

Kinda disturbed that I seem to be the only one that has run into this issue...lol. Thats my luck I guess.

Any suggestions on solving this issue? I would like to run a keyboard/mouse though this hub at some point.

 

[Sliderttu]

Bump

 

[wishy]

Your not alone. I have a externally powered Mikomi 7 port hub. Windows hangs if devices plugged in to hub but not if they are plugged into PC USB ports directly.

This is obviously a HUB win 7 issue as the same hub with the same devices worked without any problem in Vista.

I have Win 7 64 bit Home Premium...

 

[Qdos]

There are USB devices that simply don't work with W7. I have a card reader that is affected - only answer I found was to buy new hardware (although I expect these types of issue may be resolved by Microsoft whenever SP1 is released...)

 

[wishy]

Yeah I had issue with card reader also crashing WMC every few seconds.

windows 7 wmpshare.exe

Seems to be sorted up to now...! Roll on SP1 and I guess 2...3 etc

 

[skrave]

I have the EXACT same problem. I bought Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium OEM and could not get it to install. It kept hanging on the first installation screen. Changed USB 2.0 in bios to 1.1 and it worked fine. I tried changing it back after installation and it would hang on the loading screen. So, apparently I'm stuck using USB 1.1 because I can't find a solution. Tried updating chipset drivers etc with no luck. We are using two different motherboards so I can only speculate that this is a Win 7 problem.

 

[wishy]

Skrave, I trawled the forums and found the answer somewhere. Sorry can't remember at the moment.

However the problem was fixed with a very simple answer. Apparently a known problem when connecting Keyboard / mouse to Win 7 via hubs, powered or not.
So it simply boiled down to the fact that my keyboard and mouse were plugged in via the hub. I solved it by simply plugging keyboard and mouse directly to PC and using the Hub in third USB port for all other gizmos.

Win 7 has worked with this hub ever since. Hopefully this arrangement is possible for you so give it a try.

Good luck!

 

[skrave]

Yea I guess our situations are a little different because my keyboard and mouse are directly plugged into my PC and it won't load Win7 when I have USB 2.0 enabled via the BIOS. Still no solution.

 

[Airspeed]

Same probelm - Windows 7 Ultimat 64

I ran into the exact same problem, Windows 7 64 Utlimate, using an Asus P5N7A-VM motherboard. My problem is even worse - I am using a KVM, so I by necessity am on a hub (the KVM is a hub).

I updated the BIOS, got the latest chipset drivers, and all that. Everyting works fine, as long as I have the USB 2.0 controller disabled in the BIOS. It worked beautifully under XP.

Actually, a lot of things worked beautifully under XP...