Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs Forum

Hi Scott and Mike.
I am having a problem with Windows 7 Home Premium at discovering contents of usb drives attached to it. In particular sometimes (but not always) when I attach an usb key or usb external drive, Windows start accessing the hard drive and is slow at discovering contents of the drive or key (almost one minute or so). At other times the discovering process is very much faster (few seconds). I don't understand why this difference is occurring between situation that are analogous (no other software running, same services and so on) and what Windows is doing while it is accessing the hard drive.
The problem is arising with different usb key, keys newly formatted and scanned for errors, except perhaps (as far as I can understand, but I should do a little more testing) with a usb key completely empty.
My problem seems to be very similar to that described at http://superuser.com/questions/315159/usb-memory-stick-discovery-is-slow
Thank to all of you for very suggestion.
Massimo

In most cases I find problems like this to be caused by anti-malware software. To verify try disabling or uninstalling any and all anti-malware software on the system and retest. Let me know what you find. Scott.

Hi Scott.
First of all thank you for your very fast replay.
I've in my PC Kaspersky antivirus and no other antimalware software running at boot.
I've tried booting in safe mode (in which KAV is not running) and the problem remains the same (even with some different usb keys). A thing I forgot to say yesterday is that slowing at mounting usb keys/disks is occurring only with the first key/disk I attach; if (before rebooting) I attach another key/disk the problem does not replicate and discovering is very fast (using different keys or a huge disk after a small key, not the same). If I reboot, the problem arises the fist time I attach a key or disk (but a few times it does not). On the other hand FAT32 or NTFS does not make a difference.
Thank you again for your support.
Massimo

I would still recommend disabling or uninstalling Kaspersky to see if that helps. If that doesn't help then try uninstalling the USB controller drivers in the device manager, reboot and allow the system to reinstall them. If that doesn't help then I would try to remember the last things you changed or installed before the problem started, and un-do or uninstall them. If that doesn't help then I would boot from a "live" disc like Knoppix, the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows, or others and see if the problem remains under the alternate OS. If it does then the problem is most likely hardware related. If not, then the problem is related to your current OS installation. If the latter is true then at that point I would recommend reinstalling Windows. Let me know what you find, Scott.

Thank you Scott.
I've done some testing and some other I'll do in the next few days.
Right now the problem seems to be gone away, after I attached a key while a VmWare virtual machine was running at the same time. I do not know if that was the reason of the problem going away, but I'll keep doing tests to see if it starts again.
Most likely I think it is (was?) a software problem (knoppix and Ubuntu live were very fast at detecting). On the other hand disabling KAV (and shutting down its service) did not help, so I suppose KAV is not involved in the problem. I've also uninstalled the USB controllers and Windows reinstalled them but this didn't help and unfortunately I don't know the last thing changed before, because I don't remember the point in time in which the problem started, it's likely I noticed it some time after the real moment.
I'll let you know if the problem appears again.
Thank you
Massimo

Hi Scott.
The problem seems to be intermittent. However running now and then a Wmware machine and attaching usb keys while it is running seems to be useful, cutting down the time of mounting disks to a few seconds.
I'll keep investigating this issue, hoping to understand which are the differences between when the problem arises and when it doesn't.
I'll let you know if I find something useful.
Perhaps only reinstalling Windows would resolve ultimately, but I don't want to, because after reinstallation I ought to make all the customizations and software installation I've made over the years.
Thanks.
Massimo

Hi Scott.
I've found that the problem sometimes arises also when disconnecting a pendrive from the real physical PC and connecting it to a Vmware virtual PC (running Windows 7 home premium freshly installed). The process of disconnecting from a PC and reconnecting to the other in that case is merely a software process and hardware is not added or removed in any way. On the other hand nothing change if the disk contains many files and folders or it is totally empty. So I think it could be a Win7 problem of some kind but I can't figure out any more.
Massimo

emphasis mine

Here is a link where the problem is described exactly as I see it in my PC.
Regards.
Massimo

Sometimes corruption in the registry where USB device information is stored can interfere with new or existing device detection. I would try using USBDeview or USBOblivion to remove the registry entries for all previously attached USB devices. I would follow that up by running CCleaner to do a system and registry cleaning. Let me know if that helps, Scott.

Hi Scott.
Thanks for your prompt reply.
I've already used both USBDeview and Ccleaner for removing USB registry entries and cleaning the system and the registry, but no luck...
Nevertheless I'll try using USBDeview (or/and USBOblivion), followed right away by a Ccleaner registry cleaning to see if it somehow helps (but the fact that the problem also is present in freshly installed new PCs makes it harder to resolve).
I'll let you know what I'll find.
Thanks again.
Massimo

have you try to replace the memory (RAM) It could be that the memory could be bad. or a memory leak.

Thanks for your replay.
I don't think it is a bad RAM, since no other software (or Windows itself in circumstances other than USB discovering) show the problem, no PC hangs or the like.
Massimo

Hi Scott.
I've deleted the registry USB keys using Usboblivion and then cleaned the registry immediately and finally rebooted. After that I've attached 1 usb key and 1 usb external disk to two different usb ports on the PC. Windows 7 installed the drivers for either the key and the disk without any problem.
Then I disconnected them, rebooted and tried to attach the key, but no luck ... the problem was the same as previous. Rebooted again (otherwise the malfunctioning won't arise the second time you attach a key or disk, only the first time) and attached the external disk: the problem was the same as usual (dozens of seconds to recognise the piece of hardware).
Thank you for your attention.
Regards.
Massimo

You might try using Process Monitor as described here and here to see if you can troubleshoot what is happening to cause the delays. Let me know if you find anything. Scott.

Make sure that the drive is not a usb 3.0. drives that are usb 3.0 must be plug into a usb port 3.0.

This is probably a long shot, since you said that the issue is intermittent, but you don't have it formatted as NTFS rather than FAT32 do you? I found that it took way longer to mount a usb drive under NTFS than when formatted with FAT32. Not sure why this is the case, NTFS probably has more overhead inherent in the file system than FAT32.

Thank you Spiderman for your replay.
My USB ports are 2.0 for sure (intregrated into motherboard Asus P5KPL SE) and so are either the keys and the external drive (as it is said on their respective packages).
Regards.
Massimo

Thank you Scott.
As soon as I can I'll use Process Monitor to view if I can find anything and I'll let you know.
Regards.
Massimo

Thank you Craig for your replay.
When I started exploring about this issue I've also thought that the file system used could be somehow involved. But I tried the same key in both FAT32 and NTFS and the problem was the same: the file system did not make a difference.
Regards.
Massimo

Have you try those drives in another windows 7 computer and was it faster?

I don't know if you have reinstall windows 7 drivers? give that a shot and see what happen I would pick the fat32 table.

I love windows vista.....

Thank you for your replay.
I've already tried to swith between FAT32 and NTFS and the results didn't change.
Windows 7 drivers were reinstalled when I reattached the keys/external hd after I cleaned all usb drivers using USBOblivion and CCleaner, as suggested by Scott.
As soon as I can, I'll try attaching some of the keys involved to another Win7 PC to see If the issue is present or not (but in my PC also it is not present always).
Regards.
Massimo

Hi Scott and Mike.
I followed your suggestion, but till now I had no luck in troubleshooting. It seems that when Process Monitor is running and then I attach a usb device, Windows always discover it in seconds. On the other hand, when I attach my keys without having Process Monitor running sometimes the problem is present and sometimes it doesn't. Therefore I can't do any useful troubleshooting. I'll let you know if I can find something new.
Thanks.
Massimo

Try running a System Restore under Systems Tools, to an earlier date before the incidence happened. Kit.

Hi Kit and thank you for your replay.
Unfortunately I don't know when the issue arose for the first time (maybe since the very beginning when I bought the PC), so I can't use System Restore to try to solve it.
Massimo

Hi, Scott and Mike.
In the last three or four weeks the problem seems to have gone away.
I don't know if some Win7 updates helped to solve the issue.
I'll let you know if it arises again in the future.
Thanks.
Massimo

Hi Scott and Mike.
Finally, for some others reasons, I reinstalled Windows 7. At the beginning the problem was exactly as previous, but a little time afterwards (after having installed nearly all Windows updates available) it disappeared and until now (about nine months or so) it never appeared again.
I deduce that some Windows updates have solved the issue.
Thank you for all your support.
Massimo

Thanks for the update, glad to hear the problem is solved. Scott.

Hi Scott and Mike,
The problem appeared again a few weeks ago, but fortunately I was able to solve it uninstalling the kb3020369 windows update, that I had installed in the meanwhile. For now it has gone away!
Best Regards.
Massimo

I'm glad that worked out, thanks for reporting your solution. Scott.

Hi Scott and Mike,
Sorry for a mistake in my post: it's the KB3078667 that, once uninstalled, solved the issue, not the kb3020369, as I stated (by the way the kb3020369, if installed, cannot be uninstalled later... so I've been lucky, after all).
I apologize for the mistake.
Massimo

Thanks for the update. Scott.