Solved A puzzling USB problem

I had a perplexing issue with an external hard drive that I’ve solved but I do not understand why it is solved or even why I had the problem in the first place. I hope someone can enlighten me.

I had my mouse, keyboard, and a powered Western Digital external hard drive connected to a powered usb 2.0 switch between 2 computers, one Windows 10 (an old Optiplex 9020), the other Windows 11(a new Optiplex 7080)This external hard drive serves as the data drive for both systems depending on which one I am switched to using the switch. In both systems I originally had the switch plugged into a usb 2.0 rear port.

Here was my problem and what solved it.

Everything worked and still works perfectly using Windows 10. However, in Windows 11, anytime I restarted or cold booted, the HDD was NOT detected until I entered disk management. The mouse and keyboard WERE detected. I didn’t have to do anything in disk management, only open the utility which scanned the drives and added the external drive to the disk map. Everything worked perfectly until the next restart or cold boot. Then the HDD would not be detected again

I swapped the control cable between the 2 machines using the same 2.0 ports with no difference. I then swapped usb 2.0 ports on Windows 11 still with no difference. I thought it might be related to the HDD driver so I attempted to force Windows 11 to use the driver from WD, but the OS continued to use the MS disk drive driver 10.0.22000.1 instead. Windows 10 also uses the MS Driver but its driver is 10.1.1904.1.

Once Windows 11 was hot, I could easily use the switch to transfer the mouse, KB, and HDD back and forth between the 2 machines and everything worked well. It’s only if I restarted or cold booted Windows 11 that I lost the external HDD. USB selective suspend is disabled in power options.

I found if I plugged the switch control cable into a usb 3.2 gen 1 OR gen 2 port instead of using ANY usb 2.0 port on the Windows 11 machine that my issue disappeared. However, I could plug the external hard drive directly into that same usb 2.0 port without any issues; whereas, using any usb 2.0 port on the Windows 10 machine for the control cable works fine and the HDD is always detected.

I am attaching a photo of my PC connections. Looking at my USB controllers in device manager, it appears both the gen1 and gen 2 usb 3.2 ports work off the same hub.

Can someone explain to me what the difference is, and why, just by entering disk management the drive gets detected on the 2.0 port And why connecting a 2.0 switch to a 3.2 port works as expected but connecting it to a 2.0 usb port does not.

@Ghot @The-Hive @Edwin Do you have any idea why I am having this problem? I've got it working but am trying to figure out why I had to do it this way.

glasskuter said:

and a powered Western Digital external hard drive connected to a powered usb 2.0 switch

Click to expand...

Just a guess out of thin air... maybe Win 11 has issues with powering a device... twice?
You have a lot of things there I have no way to duplicate.
Prebuilt comps, USB switch, add to that, the fact that I have Sleep and Hibernate disabled, etc.

Also... I seem to remember something about... not all USB ports supply power, or the same amount of power??
Like different amperage, maybe??

What sort of switcher is it? KVM or sumpthin different?

@glasskuter Sorry That is beyond me

Ghot said:

maybe Win 11 has issues with powering a device... twice?

Click to expand...

That's the thing. Windows 11 PC is not powering the device twice. The usb switch will work out of the box and run with the voltage supplied from the usb port if one is running only a keyboard and mouse. However, I found there wasn't enough power to run any other device plugged into one of the additional ports on the switch so I added a 5v external power supply to the switch to bring the power to a steady 5.0v which solved that problem and would let me run things like usb flash drives using the additional ports, though I rarely do this. It's only when I plug a external HDD which has it's own power supply that the recognition problem comes into play. By the way, I have tried multiple external hard drives and the issue is consistant. I do not hot-swap the drives. They stay plugged into the switch . There must be some sort of fluctuation in the powering the new machine does on it usb 2.0 ports so it may not be a Windows 11 issue at all, but a PC issue.

Edwin said:

What sort of switcher is it? KVM or sumpthin different?

Click to expand...

Just a plain old 2.0 USB switch which I am powering with an external 5v power supply. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BD8I2OY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

This morning I tried connecting it to the FRONT 2.0 port with the same result. I then moved it to the front 3.2 port and it started to work there, too. Even though I don't understand it, this proves to me it's the way this new PC powers the usb ports.

Thanks, guys. The main thing is I have it working. I was just hoo-dooed as to why Windows 11 machine doesn't see the device as Windows 10 machine does. Guess it will remain a mystery. Since I'm having to utilize one of my 3.2 ports for this thing, I guess I need to invest in a new 3.2 usb switch. It should allow me to get full benefit of the transfer speed of my 3.1 external hdd, at least on that one computer. The Windows 10 machine is mainly for backup and testing so it doesn't matter that I have to run the drive at 2.0 speed on it.

glasskuter said:

... why Windows 11 machine doesn't see the device as Windows 10 machine does.

Click to expand...

Maybe an issue with the device's firmware...,
or, a Drive letter issue...

I would look at the different USB settings in both computers' BIOS.

Yes, USB 3 ports tend to have more power available than do the USB 2 ports. The Switch I use is for Ethernet connections for additional ports where the Router has only 4. I do use USB 2 and USB 3 Hubs but if for static use I get those with their own power supply, much more stable than the unpowered one. I also use Add-in cards for USB 3 that plug into PCIe X1 or X4 slots on the motherboard, they come with a cable to plug into the computer's power supply. The portable USB 3 drives such as WD My Passport use the same SATA drives as in Notebooks and need only the power from USB 3 ports, the larger USB [2 and 3] drives have the same 3.5" drive in Desktops and do need their own power.

Considering there are two external power supplies already - one on the hub and one on the external drive connected to the hub, I very seriously doubt there is a USB power issue.

NavyLCDR said:

Considering there are two external power supplies already...I very seriously doubt there is a USB power issue.

Click to expand...

I was thinking about it the same way as you. To my way of thinking the external power source on the hub keeps a constant 5v on the switch ports whereas with no external power, the hub has just as much power as whatever port its connected to in the PC provides, barely enough for a KB and mouse. I use the same logic with the external power source on the HDD. It's that external power that's powering the HDD, not the power from the usb port.

I know I can plug this full size WD drive directly into ANY usb port and it will not spin up until I connect its power supply.

Beats me as to what a restart or cold boot has to do with this. I can't find anything in bios that might affect it. Thanks guys for all your thoughts.

I intended but failed to mention the 3.5" drives in the larger case need both 5V and 12V hence the need for their own power supply. The 2.5" type in Notebooks and the pocketable cases need only 5V which is all the USB ports can provide.

glasskuter said:

I was thinking about it the same way as you. To my way of thinking the external power source on the hub keeps a constant 5v on the switch ports whereas with no external power, the hub has just as much power as whatever port its connected to in the PC provides, barely enough for a KB and mouse. I use the same logic with the external power source on the HDD. It's that external power that's powering the HDD, not the power from the usb port.

I know I can plug this full size WD drive directly into ANY usb port and it will not spin up until I connect its power supply.

Beats me as to what a restart or cold boot has to do with this. I can't find anything in bios that might affect it. Thanks guys for all your thoughts.

Click to expand...

You might want to try turning off Windows Fast Startup:

NavyLCDR said:

You might want to try turning off Windows Fast Startup:

Click to expand...

It's already off. I use S3 sleep rather than hibernate so when I turned off hibernate, that removed the fast startup option.

Windows may have created some Windows Error Reporting (WER).

Please run V2 and upload results directly into this thread:

Run: event viewer script > post a share link into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

@zbook

Please test all drives > post images of the results using one drive, drop box, or google drive


Run HD Tune: (free or trial version)
Post images for results on these tabs:
a) Health
b) Benchmark
c) Full error scan


Run Sea Tools for Windows:
Long generic test

@zbook how long do I run the full error scan with HDTune and how long is long generic test with Seatools? Do the tests automatically stop?

These tests can run overnight:
a) HD Tune full error scan
b) Sea Tools for Windows long generic test

There have been many threads where they were run simultaneously too.
(Ideally they are run one at a time but I've not yet seen anomalous or abnormal results from the simultaneous runs)

@zbook Something is weird. Several of those events point to a disk 2. I do not have a disk 2 .