I have a customer with a Windows Server 2003 Standard installation that is using external USB hard drives as backup media, the backup software is Symantec Backup Exec 2010. Several months ago, they began having an issue where whenever a drive was plugged in to the server, it would cause various issues on the server, including an overall lack of responsiveness, inability to access the Management MMC and issues with shutting down. The system will not allow you to stop the USB device through the system tray icon and the only way to restore normal functionality is to power the server off and back on. If the USB drive is connected at power up, the system will recognize it and appears to interact normally with it, as well as behaving normally in general. If you remove it and attempt to add a different drive, the above behavior happens again, which is a major issue, since they change these drives out daily for the next backup. I should point out that these drives have been used to backup this server since day 1, back in 2005. The server in question has all the most recent drivers and updates. I have tried different external hard drives on this server (drives from two different manufacturers), different cables, different power sources, various OS tweaks of the USB system, added a 3rd party USB interface card and the problem persists. Yet I can take one of these drives to a Windows XP workstation and connect/disconnect it with no unusual behavior caused. If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very interested in new ideas.

Hi, As you mention “Yet I can take one of these drives to a Windows XP workstation and connect/disconnect it with no unusual behavior caused”, so it seems that there is no issues with the USB drivers, so the issue may related to the USB port on the problematic Windows Server 2003 Standard computer. However, you also mentioned “added a 3rd party USB interface card and the problem persists”, so you can try to boot the problematic computer into Safe Mode and then attach the USB drives to see whether you get the same issue. Best Regards, Vincent Hu

Thanks for posting this. One of my client's servers has the same issue and we have not been able to resolve it. Some of my observations: - the problem occurs with any mechanical HDD, but not flash "thumb" drives - does not seem to be a "size" issue, 8GB flash=good, 1.2GB micro HDD=bad - we took an image w/ Acronis and restored back to the same system using the "restore anywhere" option hoping for a magical driver fix. No change. - it's been a while, so I may be wrong on the next (2) points: - the problem still occured in safe mode - the problem did NOT occur while booting from a Knoppix CD I hope this helps, Mitch

Our work around in the meantime is to attach the drives to a PC and share it out. The horrible performance is not an issue since the backup occures after hours. Mitch

Did you try driver rollback... it sounds silly but it may have the old original storage driver for USB devices. Do you have another server to connect to for testing? It has to be either hardware or software... if it works in another system, you need to check hardware or software on the server. Verify the motherboard isn't shorted by using a mouse or something in that same USB port.. another peripheral besides a storage device. If another device works in that port with no issues, you've eliminated both the hardware scenarios and you're down to a bad driver. Try to resolve in safe mode or perform a driver reinstallation with the OEM drivers and not Windows Update drivers. Steve Kline Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Server Administrator Microsoft Certified Product Specialist Microsoft Certified Network Product Specialist This posting is "as is" without warranties and confers no rights.

Some other things that we have done: - replace the motherboard (same model) - tried an add-on PCI USB card - tried an add-on eSATA card and drive (this was the showstopper that caused us to use the workaround in my second post) So, which driver(s) should I roll-back on a server that has been in service for (2) years now and otherwise runs fine? Mitch

I actually have observed the same thing as Mitch, the problem does not happen with a USB flash drive and does seem to happen in Safe Mode. I didn't have access to a Knopix CD, so I'm not sure what the results there would be. And I did not want to muddy the water with this in my initial post, but the server I posted about actually experienced a catastrophic crash right before I made that post and has been replaced. Once the brand new replacement server was set up and the USB drive with the most recent backup was connected to it, it began exhibiting the same symptoms. As before, that same drive can be connected to an XP Professional workstation without experiencing the same issues. I thought about malware, but I can't find any evidence of that and the drives have frequently been reformatted before use.

If you are running Windows Server 2003 and you are wondering why your USB Hard Drive is not seen by the Operating System after you plug it in, here is the answer to this common problem. Windows Server has a tendency of attempting to assign a drive letter to the USB hard drive that is already in use. If you have plugged in a USB hard drive and checked in Device Manager to see if it is working correctly, and it is, the next step you need to take is to open DISK MANAGEMENT and look at the current disks. You will see that there is your standard C drive, your cd / dvd drive and then you may see your USB Drive but there is not a letter assigned to it. Go to that device that does not have a letter assigned to it, right click on it, and then click on CHANGE DRIVE LETTERS AND PATH. You will then see a place to change the drive letter. Simply change it to a letter that is not being used already (example C or D) and then CLICK OK. You problems are not resolved. The operating System will assign the letter of your choosing and from then on, you will have total and complete access to your External Hard Drive. Also, the operating system will indeed remember the letter that you assigned to it and when you unplug the hard drive and plug it back in, the system will assign it the same letter again.

I have a customer with from what I can tell the exact same problem. The difference is my customer is running storage server 2003. Usb hard drives when plugged in lock up the device manager and disk management and normal shutdown is no longer possible. Usb flash drives appear to work fine. Motherboard replaced today which made no difference. My customer has tried many different external drives with the same result. Also these same drives work fine on another Server 2003 SBS. If I boot storage server 2003 with usb hard drive already connected everything works fine. If I unplug it or plug another in I may as well pull the power plug. Did anyone ever find an answer to this question?

And your net result ???

Hello everyone. I had this exact problem trying to plug in a new WD Elements external drive to an elderly Windows Server 2003 running on a Dell Poweredge. I got lucky, the solution for me was simple. I can't promise it works for anyone else. I had to have the drive plugged in before booting up. Normally, with a USB device, I like to pre-install software then plug in the drive, or if no software is available, make sure windows has finished booting before plugging it. In this case, I had to do it backwards. If I plugged in the drive after booting, trying to view the drive in disk manager or getting the drive's properties in device manager would result in a hang. After that, mmc and other apps would hang, and eventually windows explorer. By plugging it in first, then powering up, the drive appeared and had a letter assigned. Worked fine. It may be the issue mentioned earlier - windows was trying to assign the drive a letter that was already taken. By booting with the drive, windows gave the drive a letter at the same time as all the others. Just a guess. Good luck to anyone else with this issue. Transferring over the network isn't a bad workaround.