Re: I'm puzzled - Firewire Problems, need help Please.

On Apr 16, 11:17 am, Lonnie <Lon...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm going to assume that you're talking about the drive since you use the
word "unit".  Yes, it has a USB port on it as well, and using the drive with
that port doesn't cause me any trouble at all (meaning no errors in the event
viewer) and it shows up without any yellow exclamation marks in Device
Manager.  However I purchased the drive for its firewire capabilities (much
faster than USB).  Man I hate to think how long it would take to backup 10G +
via USB.

Really weird, in my opinion.  With the so called driver from WD installed,
the yellow exclamation mark disapears, but then I get the errors in event
viewer and drive becomes unusable.  Uninstall the driver and the yellow
exclamation mark re-appears but I don't get the errors in the event viewer
and I retain access to the drive - but I get a message from Windows that the
drive may not work properly without the driver....I feel like I'm in an
"Endless Loop" here.   :-(

Thank you for your reply.



"smlunatick" wrote:
On Apr 14, 12:23 pm, Lonnie <Lon...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for the reply.

Ok, I don't know what's going on but I certainly appreciate everyones help..  
I'm getting a little tired of nothing working.  I think it's a little weird
that the drive is "Technically" recognized, but I still have a yellow ? and
!.  Smlunatick, I gave your suggestion a try sfc /scannow and it seemed to
pull a lot of stuff off of the original systems disc, but after rebooting,
there was still no changes.  

To me this is very puzzling, but I'm not going to continue to dwell on it
soooo much.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this drive though.  I'm
surely NOT going to buy another external drive - too much of a darn headache.

"smlunatick" wrote:
On Apr 14, 8:38 am, Lonnie <Lon...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for the reply.

I just don't understand this then if "No other driver(s) are needed".  I
went ahead and tried what you suggested about uninstalling the device.  The
New Hardware Wizard started and everything, I told the wizard to look at the
windows update site....etc, so it did, and it looked all over my hard drive &
also I decided to put in the system disc just in case .... and all it did was
tell me the hardware couldn't be installed and that it may not work properly.
 It is shown in Device Manager under "Other devices", which you probably
already know has a yellow ?, and then it is listed as "WD External HDD Button
& Lights", and this is the type of drive it is, but AGAIN, there is a yellow
!.   As mentioned in my other posts, I can see the drive, I can view
contents, I can copy to/from, but I DO NOT TRUST IT because Windows tells me
it may not function properly because of NO DRIVER.

Any other thoughts/comments/suggestions are welcomed.  I appreciate
everyones help on this, I just wish I could get it resolved.  Thanks again.

"M.I.5¾" wrote:

"Lonnie" <Lon...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1FEABC40-BAC2-4DE2-B429-07604818DA13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ok, I've got a WD External Firewire drive that seems to be malfunctioning.
Now Western Digital Support is telling me that the Firewire Drive is plug
&
play and that windows should already have the driver for it.  HUH, since
when
did Firewire become plug & play?  I've got Yellow Exclamation marks in
device
manager.  Doesn't that mean that there isn't a proper device driver
installed
for the drive?

Firewire is most certainly plug and play and no other drivers should be
required under XP.  If the firewire device has a yellow ! over it, something
is not quite right - but it doesn't usually mean that there is no driver
(That scenario would generally report the drive as an 'unknown device').
First thing to try is to right click the device and uninstall it..  Now
reboot windows and allow it to rediscover the drive and install it.  If that
doesn't work try it on another PC just to check that it isn't the drive.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Firewire "hosts" drivers appear to be "built-in" XP thus the rason why
"no other driver" required.  However, this does not mean that the
driver files can not be "damaged" since these are still standard XP
files.  You can try to  run "sfc /scannow" to try to have XP repair
these files.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Does your unit have additional ports?  Several models come with
multiple different type of connectors (Firewire, eSATA or USB?)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The yellow excalimation mark shows up when the "connection" fails.
When using different ports, including different Firewire and USB
ports, will re-detect the "hardware id" for each device and re-
establish a connection to this device. Doing this "last" test gave
you the results that the drive works correctly.
.