3 replies to this topic

[DMcCunney]

I have a current ImDisk installed in a Win10 Pro desktop machine.  There's a 7 port USB hub connected via a rear USB port, and an assortment of thumb drives plugged into it.  I also have an inkjet printer that connects via USB.

 

I discovered the hard way that if I plug the printer into a front USB port, USB goes bonkers, and half of the thumb drives plugged into the hub disappear from Windows.  A restart is needed to get things back to sanity.  If I pull a thumb drive and plug the printer into the USB hub, things work.

 

The bit that has me posting here is that when USB goes bonkers, I lose my ImDisk ramdrive, too.  It simply goes away, and I must restart to get it back.  (It's where my Firefox profile normally lives, so having it go away is a show stopper.)

 

I don't understand that at all. I wasn't aware of any connection between the ImDisk driver and USB support that might cause this to occur.

 

Has anyone else seen behavior like this?

________

Dennis

Edited by DMcCunney, 12 January 2017 - 04:48 AM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Maybe - but this is not connected to IMDISK - *somehow* the issue is related to too much current needed for those devices?

It doesn't sound like that as the port on the back with the hub and several USB sticks should be drawing more current anyway.

Then - still pure guessing - some of the USB sticks become underpowered and crash, messing up drive letter assignments and this *somehow* affect IMDISK working?

 

It sounds more like some issues (in the USB stak part) of the Registry and a driver conflict, but surely it is "unusual".

 

Which specific machine (make/model) is the PC? 

Which specific printer is that one?

How (exactly) do you start the IMDISK device?

What do you mean "it simply goes away"? (I mean have you tried IMDISK command line to check if a device is still there (though without a drive letter assigned to it). Open a command prompt and run imdisk -l and then imdisk -l -u 0

Do you have "mixed" USB sticks on the hub? (I mean some USB 2.0, some USB 3.0, etc.)

 

Besides and before anything else, a good idea would be to get USBdeview:

http://www.nirsoft.n...vices_view.html

 

Disconnect all USB sticks and the printer, then use it to clean all "non connected devices".

Then reconnect one by one all the devices involved.

 

Wonko

[v77]

Maybe an issue with the driver letter of the ramdisk.
Did you try to restart Explorer (for instance through the Task Manager)?
Another test: try to access the ramdisk though a command prompt.

[steve6375]

Try experimenting with the number of USB drives in your hub.

What is the minimum number of drives that need to be connected before it goes wrong?

Are these USB 3 ports or are they all USB 2?