A followup on online-storage services

Problems with USB-attached external hard drives

How drivers and Device Manager settings can determine Windows’ level of access to external hard drives.

Plus: Whether it’s better to upgrade to the latest version of Win10 or to original release; and how to resolve sign-in troubles — including lost passwords — in Win8/10.

USB-connected hard drives resist full control

Reader Donald E. Smith is having trouble getting his USB-connected drives to behave properly.

• “Windows 8.1, it seems, has a problem recognizing solid-state drives in USB enclosures. Apparently it can’t read through the enclosure’s interface and might misidentify the contained SSD as an HHD. If Windows’ drive maintenance is enabled and scheduled, the OS might then incorrectly defrag the drive. Can’t say if this is fixed in Windows 10?

  “This is not the only anomaly with USB enclosures. The most serious being how they behave in regards to “sleep” or spinning down. Even the sellers don’t seem to understand the subject.”

I agree that there’s a problem, but I don’t think it’s a Windows issue specifically; nor is it limited to Win8 or Win10.

Rather, I think this problem usually stems from the drivers — or lack of drivers — associated with the USB drive enclosure. But it could also be associated with settings in Windows’ Device Manager.

Let’s start with the drivers. External hard drives of all types have to communicate with Windows through an extra, intermediate layer of hardware and software: the USB subsystem.

The quality of the drivers involved can determine whether Windows has access to all the pertinent information about the drive.

Based on my experience, external drives from major manufacturers seem to give the best results, especially if you install and use the OEM-setup software, which can include custom drivers. These OEM setups/drivers usually allow Windows to properly identify and fully control the external drive despite the intervention — and potential interference — of the USB subsystem.

Generic plug-and-play, USB-drive enclosures usually work well enough for storing and retrieving data, and for performing chkdsk-type maintenance. But full drive-type identification and subtler settings (such as power-control’s spin-down/sleep options), could get lost in translation.

Consider Figure 1, which shows the three drives on my own primary Win10 PC. Two of the drives are fully and correctly identified by brand and model, but one is not; part of its identification consists of a generic “USB device” label. That’s a clue that Windows is using generic USB drivers for that device.

The first-listed drive is my PC’s main internal drive, a major-brand SSD originally installed using the OEM setup software. Windows can fully and accurately identify the drive, so all functions — including Win8/10’s Optimize — work as they should (i.e., TRIM is enabled, and Defrag is disabled.)

Next on the list is my main backup device, a major-brand, USB-connected 5TB drive. It’s also correctly and fully identified. I used the OEM setup and drivers to attach this drive, so although it’s communicating via USB, Windows can see “through” the USB system to correctly identify the drive exactly for what it is. This allows Windows to fully control all the drive’s features and functions, including spin-down/sleep.

But the last drive in the list is different. It’s also external and connected via USB, but it’s using Windows’ generic drivers, and so it’s identified only as a nonspecific “USB device.”

The drive is, in fact, a standard spinning-platter ATA-type device salvaged from an old PC. It’s now installed in an inexpensive, generic, plug-and-play drive enclosure that connects via USB. Because it didn’t come with its own drivers, the box must rely on Window’s generic drivers.

That drive’s basic functions work as they should. Windows can store and retrieve data just fine, Windows’ Disk Management can format the drive and alter its partitions, defrag and chkdsk do what they should, and so on.

But that drive won’t spin down or sleep properly because the generic drivers can’t correctly pass on the drive’s power-control information.

It’s evidence that drivers can indeed be the cause of incomplete control of an external hard drive. So can some settings in Device Manager, especially regarding power-state (e.g., suspend/sleep) operations.

Here’s what you can do to achieve the maximum possible control over your external drives:

• First, make sure USB power management is correctly configured.

  Open Device Manager by entering mmc devmgmt.msc into the Start/Run box, or at a command prompt, or via the power menu in Win10/8 (right-click Start and then select Device Manager).

  In Device Manager, scroll down to the Universal Serial Bus controllers listing.

  Right-click the appropriate hub or device, and select Properties. (If you don’t know which hub to select, consider using a tool such as Microsoft’s free USBView to help identify the correct one. USBView is described in the Nov. 5, 2015, Top Story, “Get your USB devices out of low gear.”)

  Examine the settings to ensure they’re what you want. For example, to check sleep/suspend options, open the Power Management tab, if it exists.

  If you want the selected device to be able to sleep/suspend, ensure that the checkbox for “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” is checked, as shown in Figure 2.

  If you want the device to always be on when Windows is running, uncheck (disable) this setting.

  

  Figure 2. The Allow the computer to turn off … setting can determine whether a USB device can enter sleep/suspend mode.

• If “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” is set the way you want, but the drive still won’t behave properly, visit the drive manufacturer’s support site and look for setup software or drivers specific to your drive model. Try reinstalling the drive with those drivers or the setup software. After reinstallation, verify that the “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” option is still set correctly.
• If the setting isn’t available or doesn’t work, or if no such custom drivers or setup software is available for the hard drive itself, see if the manufacturer of the USB enclosure offers its own custom drivers or setup software. If so, run install the software or drivers. Once again, after reinstallation, verify that the “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” option is still set correctly.

If none of the above helps — if the external drive still can’t be fully controlled the way you want — there’s not much more to be done.

Your only remaining options are either to try a different combination of drive and enclosure or, as I’ve had to do with my generically-identified third drive, simply to accept that your combination of hardware and drivers can’t provide full control of all the drive’s features and functions.

Okay to upgrade Win10 direct to Version 1511?

Earlier Windows versions were sometimes upgraded via Service Packs, which had to be installed in the correct order.

Reader Henry Dulak is wondering if those same sequential-upgrade rules apply to Windows 10.

• “Please answer this question. When upgrading to Windows 10 with an ISO file, do we first need to upgrade to the original version or can we jump right to the newest ISO?

  “I’ve not seen this addressed anywhere and I’ve been installing the original version first on the computers I upgrade. But it seems like a huge waste of time. Thanks!”

Good news, Henry: Unlike some earlier versions of Windows, you can upgrade directly to the latest Win10 version.

As you surmise, this eliminates the need to go through a long round of additional updates immediately after installation.

The “Get Windows 10” page always has the latest-released files for both the Win10 ISO download and the in-place “live” upgrade.

Once you have Win10 up and running, you’ll still have to add the most recent patches via Windows Update. But this, too, will be relatively quick because most Win10 updates are cumulative — the most recent update includes nearly all past updates.

Windows 10 sign-in and password hassles

Herman Standiford’s Win10 credentials got messed up. The problem can show up on Win8 systems, too.

• “Fred, I made the mistake of using a MS account sign in. Now I can’t remember the password. I’ve tried to get help from Microsoft, but MS support wants me to jump through hoops to get it done.

  “Can you tell me how to eliminate the need for a password?”

There shouldn’t have been any hoops to jump through; just go to the password reset page, select “I forgot my password,” click Next, and follow the on-screen instructions to verify your identity. You should then be able to reset the password.

If that doesn’t work for some reason, there are alternate methods. See July 17, 2014, On Security article, “How to reset lost passwords for Windows.”

Once you have things working again, you can set Win10 to skip the sign-in prompt. See “How to bypass the Windows sign-in password” (Oct. 10, 2013, LangaList Plus).

Finally, for complete information on the many different ways you can sign in to Win8 and Win10 (they use essentially the same methods) see, the Jan. 8, 2015, LangaList Plus column, “Taming Win8’s seven-way sign-in hassles.”

With that info, you should be able to regain complete control over the Windows sign-in process and choose the method prefer!

Feedback welcome: Have a question or comment about this story? Post your thoughts, praise, or constructive criticisms in the WS Columns forum. To rate this or other stories, click over to our polls page.

A followup on online-storage services

July’s security updates get the best of a Windows expert.

Also, a review of ADrive.com, a reader-recommended cloud-storage service.

Potential problems with recent Windows updates

A quick note about April’s Windows updates. It’s extremely rare that Fred Langa runs into a computing problem he can’t solve in short order. But in a recent email to fellow Windows Secrets contributor Susan Bradley, he noted that April’s Windows updating seemed to get stuck on several of his Windows 7 machines. The PCs are a mix of physical and virtual systems, and the physical systems have significantly different hardware configurations.

(The problem also showed up on a Vista system, but the updates installed normally on Win8 and Win10 machines.)

On the affected systems, the update process stalled at “Checking for updates ….” In one instance, Fred let the updating process run for a day, but it never completed. He noted that there was very little disk or network activity, so it wasn’t the case that the update files were taking a long time to download and install.

Slow updating is nothing new for Windows 7. Recently, Microsoft has been patching the Windows Update subsystem to make upgrading to Win10 easier. But the patches may also contain more useful fixes. For example, KB 3112343 can help prevent excessive CPU use — slowing overall PC performance — when Windows Update is run manually. Almost a year ago, June’s KB 3050265 included a fix for the same problem.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution for the slow — or stalled — updating problem. Microsoft often includes various fixes and enhancements in the same update, and it’s important to keep the Windows Update subsystem current.

Susan’s reply to Fred highlights one of the general rules for Windows updating: When there’s a problem, try installing the updates separately. That was common, for example, with past .NET Framework fixes. Moreover, as Microsoft focuses on Windows 10, it might not be doing a good job of setting the order of updates on Vista and Win7 systems. Simply put, some updates must be installed before others.

In Fred’s specific case, Susan recommendation is based on reports from others who figured out the workaround: install KB 3145739, a fix for the Windows Graphics Component, on its own and then install the rest of the updates.

A reader recommendation for inexpensive cloud storage

Windows Secrets reader Glenn sent in an email after reading my previous Field Notes column. He suggested looking at ADrive.com, for generous online storage.

I took a quick look at the site and it does have some interesting features — starting out with support for a downloaded app, odrive, that lets you access all your cloud-data accounts in one place.

But downloading and trying odrive (more info) proved to be a somewhat unsettling experience. To start, there’s no sign-up for odrive itself; to download the software, you sign in with your Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Oxygen Cloud, or OneDrive for Business credentials. I was unfamiliar with Oxygen Cloud — and I still am. Oxygen Cloud apparently created odrive, but also has its own cloud-storage service. But the site has almost no information about that side of the business.

Clicking Oxygen Cloud links was going down the proverbial rabbit hole. If you want to set up a new account, the site direct you to your “company’s account administrator.” Those without a corporate account are linked back to the odrive description page. And around you go.

At this point, I was ready to drop my look at odrive. I like to keep my account credentials separate; e.g., I don’t like using my Facebook sign-in for non-Facebook services and sites. I’m especially reluctant to give, say, my Microsoft account credentials to a company that seems a bit sketchy. Nevertheless, I used the sign-in for one of my test Google accounts to set up odrive.

Note that the initial odrive signup is a seven-day trial for the paid version, which costs U.S. $99 per year. The free version of odrive allows unlimited linking with other cloud-storage accounts, file and folder sharing, and support for both Mac and Windows clients. The paid version adds advanced features such as custom synching controls and automatic encryption.

Odrive works with Windows/File Explorer as a folder that contains folders for linked cloud-storage services (see Figure 1). To save drive space, all files that live in the cloud are represented simply by “placeholders;” the full folder or file is downloaded only once you access it. However, downloaded data remains local until you “unsync” it back to a placeholder — a feature only available in the premium version.

Overall, odrive might be a useful product, but it didn’t fell entirely comfortable with it.

ADrive: No free lunch? Fortunately, ADrive and odrive are separate entities; you don’t need to download or use the latter. That said, ADrive is a bit unusual for a cloud-storage service — it doesn’t appear to offer a free starter account. There’s a 60-day free trial, but the basic service is $25 per year for 100GB of storage. A 1TB account is $250 per year.

For comparison, an equivalent Dropbox account is $99 per year. But Dropbox doesn’t offer any less-expensive account for smaller amounts of storage. Google Drive is $24 per year for 100MB; Box.com, on the other hand, is $120 per year for the same storage.

While we greatly appreciate reader tips — please continue to send in the names of products you’d like us to look at and topics you’d like us to write about — ADrive does not seem to be such a bargain. It’s worth consideration, but there are many other options.

Feedback welcome: Have a question or comment about this story? Post your thoughts, praise, or constructive criticisms in the WS Columns forum. To rate this or other stories, click over to our polls page.