Windows 10: Should I be able to mount usb2 hard drive in usb3 port?

Tried to mount a usb2 hard drive in a usb3 port just now with no joy. Not positive, but I think I've done this before. Running version 20H2 and there was a recent update. My laptop also has a usb2 port but it's in an inconvenient location.

Should usb2 drive in usb3 port be working? If so, can I fix it? TIA

:)

 

USB3 Hub works on usb2 port, but not on usb3 port

USB3 Hub with 1x usb3 & 2x usb2, works on usb2 port, but not on usb3 port

On both Win 7 & 10 the same.

I checked the working usb2 driver - iusb3hub.sys

I have a pure usb3 hub that works, with the same iusb3hub.sys driver.

when trying to update/correct the driver for the "unknown device" on the usb3 port, it only accepts ".inf" files.

There are several other devices that don't work on the usb3 port.

Takers?

 

Drive Mount & Hard Link bugs - Where can I report them?

There are a number of bugs in Drive Mounts that also involves Hard Links. I summarize them below. Where can I report the bugs?

STEP 1:

I added an External USB3 Hub with 4, connected USB3 drives to USB3 Port A.

I assigned Drive Letters & added Volume Labels (example: 'W:' & 'Movies1').

All was Joy.

STEP 2:

Later, using 'Disk Management' I changed the drive letters to Mount Points (example: 'D:\Movies1').

All was Joy except 'Drive Ejection' [see Note 1].

STEP 3:

I installed USB_Disk_Eject (3rd party app) to control ejection [see Note 1].

All was Joy (including ejection via USB_Disk_Eject).

STEP 4:

Later, I changed the names of the Mount Points & the Volume Labels of the 4 USB drives (example: 'Videos1' & 'D:\Videos1').

I immediately started having problems.

- USB_Disk_Eject no longer found the USB drives.

- 'Explorer' no longer saw the USB drives.

- 'Device Manager' had marked the USB drives as hidden.

- 'Disk Management' 'Change Drive Letter & Paths...' would not remove the Mount Points [see Note 2].

The USB3 drives worked when plugged into other USB3 Ports, but not USB3 Port A (even without the Hub).

The External USB3 Hub in USB3 Port A would be recognized and enabled, but not the USB3 drives plugged into the Hub.

STEP 5:

With the External USB3 Hub removed,

I was able to individually plug in the drives and revert back to using drive letters, and

I was able to delete the Hard Links that had been created as Mount Points.

What initially appeared to a fault with USB3 Port A &/ the External USB3 Hub is instead a fault with Windows.

Now I'm back to STEP 1.

[Note 1]:

The 4 USB3 drives are all the same make & model: WD easystore 25FA. As long as the drives had letters, 'Drive Ejection' could differentiate them

- 'Eject easystore 25FA - Movies1 (W'

- 'Eject easystore 25FA - Movies2 (X'

- 'Eject easystore 25FA - Movies3 (Y'

- 'Eject easystore 25FA - MoviesP (Z'

but when I switched to Mount Points, the 4 drives appeared in 'Drive Ejection' simply as

- 'Eject easystore 25FA'

- 'Eject easystore 25FA'

- 'Eject easystore 25FA'

- 'Eject easystore 25FA'

and I could no longer differentiate them.

On recommendation from 'answers.microsoft.com', I installed USB_Disk_Eject (which includes the Mount Points in its list).

[Note 2]:

As long as the 4 Hard Links existed, 'Disk Management' 'Change Drive Letter & Paths...' would not help fix the problems.

 

Windows 10 continually mounting and unmounting USB3 connected external Hard Drive and USB3 Memory stick.

Hi Acelyn,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Unfortunately I have no USB2 Memory Sticks or External Hard Drives. To try in in my USB3 ports.

I can confirm it only happens connecting USB3 devices to my USB3 ports. Connecting any USB3 device to any USB3 port seems to trigger the problem.

Hopwever, There seems to have been a bit of a change in so far as the Mounting and Unmounting frequency is concerned. I remembered a trick / fix I used to use in the past to fix USB anomalies under Windows XP or 7.

Though those problems were mainly a USB port suddenly not recognising a device it was earlier happy with or being prompted to 'Insert the device in a USB 2 port for better speed' even though it was already in a USB2 port.

Well I used to go into Devices a delete all USB entries forcing Windows to re-load the drivers from fresh on the next reboot. This seemed fix most USB problems back then so I tried it.

Strangely the frequency seems to have now dropped to a Dismount / Mount approx every 10 minutes whereas it was almost continual before.

I have also been trawling through the Event Logs to see if there is anything there. I have looked at all the most common logs:

Custom Views> Admin, Performance, Windows and Windows Logs> System
etc

But there seems to be no entries corresponding to Mount / Dismount times.

Maybe I am looking at the wrong logs and need to look deeper? I have not looked in
Application and Service logs and especially not the Microsoft subset as it seems to go on for ever and I do not know what I am looking at down there...

If I leave a File explorer window open listing the root of the PC I can actually see the USB Drive / Memorystick being removed from the list of storage devices only to be put back again half a second later.

I am at a loss. Especially as deleting the USB devices seemed to (Illogically) partially fix the problem in as much as frequency is concerned.

Regards

Del

PS: I have not tried rolling back the update as I am not totally convinced the update caused the problem. I also noticed today that all my many rtestore points from BEFORE the update have disappeared! I was going to try a system restore but alas the was
only one system created restore point and that was after the Update :-(