USB storage drives

[IZON]

I bought two TwinMos (http://www.twinmos.com/flash_download.htm#md3) 128mbs (USB 1, Mobile disk III) a couple of weeks ago at the local 'puter fair. They came with driver software etc. They work fine on my girlfriends XP home system, but are not recognised on my 98se system.

Now here's the rub, during the initial installation on my 98se rig, the driver software installed ok and asked for a reboot. After booting up I stuck the USB drive into the port and it popped up in the 'My Computer' section along with all the other drives. But any attempt to access the USB drive resulted in the system going into some sort hang state - the egg timer just kept showing up as 'busy'.

After fiddling around with reinstalling the driver software and the add/remove hardware, I can say the USB drive is no longer recognised. However Add/Remove hardware shows that 'Mass Storage Disk Driver' software is installed & not working - but with a yellow exclamation mark, there's definitely an issue with the USB drive/software, what I don't know if this is a problem with all USB drives and 98se or could it be just this particular brand?

[Xaotic]

Some memory keys work better than others. Mostly, it's due to the quality of the drivers and firmware on the key. Using them with 98SE is usually dicey at best. Try to get updated drivers from the manufacturer's site. This might help. The firmware is normally only factory upgradeable, if at all. Power management functions usually are not well supported using memory keys under 98SE, so be careful.

[MisterEd]

Did you first plug it in before or after you installed the drivers? If you plugged it in first it could have installed the wrong driver.

If your plugged it in before you installed the driver from the CD:
* open device manager
* select the Mobile Disk III device with yellow explanation point
* delete this device
* make sure Mobile Disk III is NOT plugged in
* reboot
* plug in Mobile Disk III
* the correct driver should be loaded

If this does not work then you might try uninstalling and reinstalling the Mobile Disk III driver software after you delete the the device with the yellow explanation point

You also might have a USB problem. Do other USB devices work OK? See if there is a driver update for your motherboard.

[IZON]

Thanks for the pointers MisterEd. The yellow exclamation mark only appears when the USB drive is plugged in (and vanishes as soon as it's unplugged).

I've reinstalled the drivers a number of times including the latest ones from the TwinMos site. The problem might be related to NTKERN.VXD which is notorious for giving USB plug-in devices problems, apparently it's not loaded automatically with the installation disk and is known to give problems with digital cameras.

Anyway, I loaded NTKERN.VXD to no avail. The more I delve into this matter the more I am beginning to think that this is a unique problem that 98se has with USB drives, apperently 98 first edition doesn't have this problem.

I don't have any other USB devices to test the USB slots, but I haven't ruled out the possibility that it could be somesthing as simple as a bios update.