USB Device : Windows delayed write failed ?

I have been using my portable hard disk drive for more than an year now. Its a laptop hard-disk of 2.5 inches, 80GB capacity with a USB 2.0 casing. By now the drive has become nearly full, there is little free space.

Three days back, I got a warning saying

“Windows delayed write failed - Windows was unable to save all the data for the file M:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this data elsewhere.”

For a moment I thought that disk is going faulty, but with some hit and trial, I got it fixed.

Let me share the solution with you.

Fix:

This kind of problem is observed when the drive is almost full and there is some problem being faced by the disk in maintaining the file allocation table. This problem can be fixed in some easy steps:

1. Delete some un-necessary stuff from your drive and make at-least 5% of the total disk space as free space.

2. Open My Computer, right click on the USB drive, click on properties.

3. Go to Tools > Error-checking and select option to check now as shown in the image below.

4. This will show a window like the one below. Check the check-boxes to Automatically fix the file system and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. Click Start.

NOTE: If you are not able to run this scan, disconnect the drive and try again. If the USB malfunction error is received.

This scan may take a few minutes to a few hours depending on the disk size and type of file system. Keep patience and let it complete properly. Once this is done, re-start your computer.

Source : http://www.troublefixers.com/delayed-write-failed-error-with-usb-drive/

Windows Shows error "Can not format the pen drive" ?

We have received many problems mentioning that they are not able to format their pen drives. Some of them have written that the pen drive capacity displayed is not correct.

When they try to format the pen drive, Windows Shows error "Can not format the pen drive". There can be more than one reasons behind such problems, some of the common problems are:

1. Virus or trojan infection.

2. Corrupted flash chips on the pen drive (hardware fault)

3. Fake pen drives ! (Many such drives are there in the markets, beware)

Lets see what to do to fix the issues.

Fix:

Virus or trojan infections:

Virus or trojans can run some process that keeps running in background. This not only harms the computer, but also prevents the pen drive from formatting as it shows that the drive is in use. Remove and re-insert the pen drive, don’t double click on drive and cancel autorun operations if it starts automatically. Run a virus scan on pen drive, this will help fix the issue. Now format the pen drive.

Always take precautions while using pen drives on other computers.

he computer detects the pen drive but data on pen drive is not visible as the pen drive is not visible in My Computer ?

You may have faced a problem when you insert your pen drive and it gets detected very easily but it doesn’t show up as a drive icon in My Computer. The computer detects the pen drive but data on pen drive is not visible as the pen drive is not visible in My Computer (Explorer).

This problem occurs mainly when windows XP fails to allocate a drive letter to your portable drive(pen drive). It occurs mostly with new pen drives connected to your computer for the first time. If you face such problem then it may not be the pen drive’s fault, rather it may be windows trouble.

Fix:

You can fix this issue by following some simple steps given below.

1. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.

2. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window will appear.

3. On this disk management window, you can see some drives including the portable drive. Right click on your portable drive and click change drive letter and paths.

4. Now assign a new drive letter which is not being used by any of your drives in My Computer.

5. After assigning the new drive letter your portable drive will show up in my computer with other drives

We hope the above solution will help to fix this trouble.

How a virus in your pen drive infects?

We have received lot of problems where computers got infected easily by the viruses in the pen drives, pen drives have become one of the most easiest carriers of various types of viruses these days.

We will tell you how pen drives normally infect your computer systems and how can you open pen drive safely and back up your important data.

How a virus in your pen drive infects?

Most of the active viruses infect your windows system as soon as you double click on the Pen Drive icon in your my computer. As virus always creates a autorun.inf file which is a system ,hidden and a read only file on your pen drive. It point to the main virus file which is also located on the pen drive. When user double clicks on the pen drive files pointed by the autorun.inf got executed which copies the virus files on your system.

The image below shows the Autorun file entries in some special characters when you right click on the drive.

Let’s see how can you protect yourself by following certain practices.

Fix:

Let’s discuss these practices one by one:

1. Disable Autorun on Your Pen Drive:

• Open to Start >> Run and type “gpedit.msc” (without quotes) and press enter. This will open Group policy editor.
• Browse to Administrative templates >> System >> double click on Turn off Autoplay click on Enabled and Under Settings >> Select All Drives in the drop down and click OK (as shown in the image below)

2. Scan Your Pen Drive:

Whenever you insert your pen drive / portable drive into USB port on your system make sure to run a virus scan with your anti virus before opening your pen drive contents in windows explorer.

3. Use FreeCommander:

FreeCommander is again a file explorer like windows explorer, so you just need to download it by clicking here and install it.

After installing open your pen drive through FreeCommander (as shown in the image below)

Check if there are some additional files like autorun.inf , Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe ,Ravmon.exe ,New Folder.exe etc or any other file which you have not copied or created, delete all these suspicious files on your pen drive.

Source : http://www.troublefixers.com/how-to-protect-your-computer-from-virus-in-pen-drives/

Pen drive blocked-disabled at office or college computer - Unblock it

We have observed this problem at may places that you need some data on your pen drive but the USB drive or pen drive does not work. Windows gives a notification

“Found new hardware, USB Mass Storage Device, please install drivers for it.”

Windows will now show a New Hardware Wizard to install the drivers. Lets see in details how we can fix this problem.

Fix:

There are more than one ways in which the USB drives are disabled by Administrators at offices or colleges or schools. These methods are:

1. By Disabling USB Ports from Device Manager.

2. By Tweaking Registry values for USB Mass Storage Devices.

3. By Un-installing the USB Mass Storage Drivers.

We will see how to fix all these situations one by one. But before you begin, you must have administrator rights on that computer to fix the issue.

i) Go to Start > Run, in run prompt type “devmgmt.msc” and press enter. This will open device manager.

ii) Go to Universal Serial bus Controller. See if there are any red colored cross? If yes, right click and enable those USB Ports.

Now try and use the pen drive. If it works fine, then great, else read the next two steps also.

Correct Registry Value for USB Mass Storage device

i) Go to Start > Run , type “regedit” and press enter, this will open registry editor.

ii) Navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR

iii) Double-click on the “Start” key to modify its value, change the value to 3 and press OK.

Source : http://www.troublefixers.com/pen-drive-locked-at-office-or-college-computer-unlock-it/

Pen Drive doesn’t show up as a drive icon in My Computer ?

You may have faced a problem when you insert your pen drive and it gets detected very easily but it doesn’t show up as a drive icon in My Computer. The computer detects the pen drive but data on pen drive is not visible as the pen drive is not visible in My Computer (Explorer).

This problem occurs mainly when windows XP fails to allocate a drive letter to your portable drive(pen drive). It occurs mostly with new pen drives connected to your computer for the first time. If you face such problem then it may not be the pen drive’s fault, rather it may be windows trouble.

Fix:

You can fix this issue by following some simple steps given below.

1. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.

2. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window will appear.

3. On this disk management window, you can see some drives including the portable drive. Right click on your portable drive and click change drive letter and paths.

4. Now a assign a new drive letter which is not being used by any of your drives in My Computer.

5. After assigning the new drive letter your portable drive will show up in my computer with other drives

My computer does not detect pen drives and other USB devices like iPod or external hard drive

Fix:

In normal cases when you think your system is not detecting pen drives, it could be a case when your computer detects your pen drive but does not show up in my computer.

Method 1:

This could be due to no free drive letter has been assigned to your pen drive.

Method 2:

If none of your USB devices detect ,this could be due to wrong registry entries. i.e you need to delete UpperFilters and the LowerFilters registry values.

Method 2:

If none of your USB devices detect ,this could be due to wrong registry entries. i.e you need to delete UpperFilters and the LowerFilters registry values.

Follow the procedure listed below to correct your registry:

1. Open Start >> Run, and type "regedit" (without double quotes), and click OK.

2. Locate UpperFilters registry value. it resides in the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E980-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. Click on Edit menu, and select Delete and click OK.
Note: If you receive an error when you try to delete the registry subkey, you may not have correct permissions to edit the subkey.

4. Locate LowerFilters registry value. It resides in the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

5. Click on Edit menu, and select Delete and click OK.
6. Exit Registry Editor and restart your system.

Note : For all user, always be careful to work with registry values. If necessary take expert hands to solve this way.

Top 10 USB drive / pen drive related problems and fixes:

Top 10 USB drive / pen drive related problems and fixes:

Lets see a short summary of each problem and the fix:

Fix:

1. Computer Does Not Detect Pen Drive or USB Drive or i-pod : This kind of problem is faced due to some bad registry settings. After you fix up the registry, the USB drive will work fine.
2. Pen Drive or USB Mass storage device disabled at office or college or school: At many offices and colleges, the IT people disable or block the use of pen drives.
3. Problem in removing pen drive: When you try to remove the pen drive via safely remove hardware option, it gives error “Generic volume can not be stopped right now”. It may damage your pen drive if it is removed without stopping it properly.
4. Protect computer from virus in pen drive: Many of the deadly viruses spread easily through use of pen drive.
5. USB drive is detected, but not shown in My Computer: This kind of problem is also seen in cases of conflict over drive letter assignment by windows. The drive is there and detected but without a valid drive letter assigned to it.
6. Problem in formatting pen drive: Sometimes when you try to format the pen drive, you might see an error which says “Can not format the drive”. There can be several reasons for this.
7. USB Device has Malfunctioned: This one of the unusual warnings which you get sometimes, the solutions to this problems sounds silly, but it works. See the solution in this blog later.
8. Delayed Write failed error: This is another kind of error which is more common with USB hard drives due to some error in File allocation table. This problem can be fixed by following few simple steps.
9. Disable data writing on pen drive: This is one of the articles which tells you how you can stop data writing on your pen drive on a particular computer. This will save the drive from getting virus infections.
10. Fixed SATA Drive shown in removable USB drive list: This problem we have recently seen for many users. This is a kind for feature in a certain RAID configuration, but annoys many users.
    

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COLOR-CODE STANDARDS

Here are the diagrams:

Note that the TX (transmitter) pins are connected to corresponding RX (receiver) pins, plus to plus and minus to minus. And that you must use a crossover cable to connect units with identical interfaces. If you use a straight-through cable, one of the two units must, in effect, perform the cross-over function.

Two wire color-code standards apply: EIA/TIA 568A and EIA/TIA 568B. The codes are commonly depicted with RJ-45 jacks as follows (the view is from the front of the jacks):

If we apply the 568A color code and show all eight wires, our pin-out looks like this:

Note that pins 4, 5, 7, and 8 and the blue and brown pairs are not used in either standard. Quite contrary to what you may read elsewhere, these pins and wires are not used or required to implement 100BASE-TX duplexing--they are just plain wasted.

However, the actual cables are not physically that simple. In the diagrams, the orange pair of wires are not adjacent. The blue pair is upside-down. The right ends match RJ-45 jacks and the left ends do not. If, for example, we invert the left side of the 568A "straight"-thru cable to match a 568A jack--put one 180° twist in the entire cable from end-to-end--and twist together and rearrange the appropriate pairs, we get the following can-of-worms:

This further emphasizes, I hope, the importance of the word "twist" in making network cables which will work. You cannot use an flat-untwisted telephone cable for a network cable. Furthermore, you must use a pair of twisted wires to connect a set of transmitter pins to their corresponding receiver pins. You cannot use a wire from one pair and another wire from a different pair.

Keeping the above principles in mind, we can simplify the diagram for a 568A straight-thru cable by untwisting the wires, except the 180° twist in the entire cable, and bending the ends upward. Likewise, if we exchange the green and orange pairs in the 568A diagram we will get a simplified diagram for a 568B straight-thru cable. If we cross the green and orange pairs in the 568A diagram we will arrive at a simplified diagram for a crossover cable. All three are shown below.

Hub vs Switch

The price difference between a Switch and a Hub is almost vanishly small these days. Unless budget really is a key issue we would suggest a Switch. They come in all kinds of sizes 4, 5, 8, 16 and 24 ports. some have the ports at the back and leds at the front, others put both at the front.

RJ45 and LEDS at front

RJ45 at Rear LEDS at front

The general specification - irrespective of whether its a switch or hub - is:

1. Minimum number of ports equal to the most systems you can think of connecting plus some (say 2) ('cos you are going to change your mind!)
2. 10/100 Mbit/s auto sensing
3. LINK LED for each port
4. 10/100 LED for each port

They typically come with lots of other features e.g. Full/Half Duplex, managed or unmanaged - your budget will figure out what else you want or can afford.

Shielded Twisted Pair

Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) comes in a variety of formats. It is typically used in three applications:

1. Where there is significant EMI in the environment such as caused by high-powered electric motors (elevator shafts), flourescent lighting etc. Additionally where there is significant Alien Crosstalk (ANEXT) such as in very high speed (gigabit and 10gb) LANs. In this case the ethernet signals in the cable are protected against external interference from either adjacent pairs or the environment.

2. Where there is extremely sensitive electrical/electronic equipment in the surrounding environment or where security requirements demand elimination of eavesdropping possibilities from radiated LAN signals (TEMPEST). In this case the ethernet signals in the cable are contained and prevented from polluting, or escaping into, the external environment.

3. Where maximum performance - either speed or distance - is required. As Ethernet speeds continue to increase either fiber or Shielded Twisted Pair is becoming increasingly common, for instance, to reach 100m distances at 10Gb speeds on copper will require shielded cable (limited to 55m for UTP).

Shielded cable comes in three broad types with a confusing range of terminology:

1. Where there is a single foil (FTP - Foil Twisted Pair) or braided (ScTP - Screened Twisted Pair) shield inside the jacket covering all four pairs.

2. Where there is a foil shield covering each pair. This is frequently refered to as PiMF (Pairs in Metal Foil) and is designed primarily to eliminate Alien Cross-talk (ANEXT) from adjacent pairs.

3. Where there is a foil shield covering each pair and a (Foil or Braided) shield covering the whaoe cable. This is frequently refered to as SSTP (Double Shield Twisted Pair) or even PiMF - since many manufacturers also add a jacket shield to foil covered pair cables.

In almost all cases there is a single ground wire (called a drain) which allows for connection to secondary grounding sources.

The diagram below illustrates the differences:

Notes:

1. Shielded cable of any variety has a greater diameter than UTP and will therefore occupy more space in cable ducting and raceways.

2. Connecting shielded cable is more complex and time consuming - but not execessively so - than conventional UTP. Manufacturers specifications vary enormously, expecially with respect to grounding, and should be followed closely.

3. In shielded cable installations the jacks and receptacles are typically made of metal and the cable shield (foil or braid) is connected electrically to the connector and thence through the receptable to a suitable ground.

4. Foil covered pairs are typically not connected to ground and thus provide only alien crosstalk immunity from adjacent pairs.

5. Manufacturers specifications and measurements suggest that shielded cables do NOT create antenna effects - indeed experiments show that UTP creates a substantially greater antenna effect (~40db) over correctly grounded shielded cables.

6. Even ungrounded shielded cables provide better performance (by ~20db) than conventional unshielded twisted pair (UTP).

7. The drain wire provides a secondary or auxiliary ground method where metallic path grounding is provided by the connectors and, as such, is optional. In cases where metal connectors are not being used the drain wire may be used as the primary grounding method and needs to be routed independantly to a suitable ground.

RJ45 Connections - Some Basic Hints

1. The RJ45 connector is the critical connection - always use the highest quality connectors you can afford. The most common cause of connection faults are bad connectors.

   There are different connectors for stranded and solid cable and manufacturers do not always do a good job at differentiating them. Spend the time to make sure you have the right connector type. If you use the wrong type of connector the cable may or may not work initially but it will almost certainly fail very quickly.

2. Make and test practice cables until you get it right every time - especially before you destroy a cable you just spend 2 hours fitting.
3. When cutting the exterior cover of the cable be very careful not to cut the insulation cover of the conductors since this can cause shorts - bottom line: the cable won't work.
4. Expose a maximum of 1 inch of individual conductors when preparing the cable for connection.
5. Line up all the conductors according to the wiring standard you are using.
6. Measure the cable and trim the conductor ends so they are are all the same length and no individual conductor wire is visible outside the plastic cover of the RJ45 connector.
7. Carefully slide the prepared cable into the RJ45 connector making sure the end of the conductors reaches the end of the RJ45 connector.
8. Using the crimp tool make the connection using one firm squeeze operation.
9. Test the cable before fitting if possible.

RJ45 Male Connector Pin Numbering

RJ45 Male Connector

1000base-T Gigabit Ethernet

1000base-T is the copper based version of the gigabit Ethernet standard defined by 802.3ab which, since it is over 6 months old, is available free of charge from the enlightened IEEE. Great work. In passing, if you want to see sophistry raised to an art form read the EIA's justification for charging for their specifications. (Note: The original EIA statement is unfortunately no longer avilable on-line. This is a great loss to both the development of the English language in general, and comedy writing in particular.) The following notes apply to the 1000base-T spec:

1. The standard defines auto-negotiation of speed between 10, 100 and 1000 Mbit/s so the speed will fall to the maximum supported by both ends - ensuring inter-working with existing installations.

2. The cable specification base-line is ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-A-1995 (which you have to pay for). This means that if you know your cat5 cable was manufactured to this standard (there was a lower spec 1991 version of this specification) then it will support Gigabit Ethernet. Cat5 cable manufactured to the old specification may work or it may not - you need to run some tests. Cat5e and cat6 being higher spec cables will clearly support Gigabit Ethernet.

3. Maximum runs are the standard 100m (~300ft).

4. Gigabit Ethernet uses all 4 pairs (8 conductors). The transmission scheme is radically different (PAM-5 a 5 level amplitude modulation scheme) and each conductor is used for send and receive.

5. Crossed Gigabit Ethernet cables must cross all 4 pairs.

100base-T Straight Cable (PC to HUB/SWITCH)

Straight cables are used to connect PCs or other equipment to a HUB or Switch. If your connection is PC to PC or HUB to HUB you MUST use a Crossed cable.

The following cable description is for the wiring of BOTH ends (RJ45 Male connectors) with your category 5 wiring colors (TIA/EIA 568A or 568B though the example uses 568B colors).

Pin No.	conductor color	Name
1	white and orange	TX_D1+
2	orange	TX_D1-
3	white and green	RX_D2+
4	blue	BI_D3+ **
5	white and blue	BI_D3- **
6	green	RX_D2-
7	white and brown	BI_D4+ **
8	brown	BI_D4- **

We use BLUE for 100baseT straight cables.

NOTES:

1. Wires marked ** are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for 100Base-T4 networks - used when any combination of category 3/4/5 cables are present, when using 1000base-T (GigE) and MAY be required for Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) - see below.

2. Wires marked ** are not essential for 100Base-TX (using cat 5/5e ONLY cables) and CAN be used for other purposes, for example, telephony but, and our LAN plus Telephony article before you wire your entire neighbourhood for surround sound.

3. The Power-over-Ethernet spec (802.3af) allows three schemes where power may be supplied. Two of these schemes use pairs 4,5 and 7,8 (marked ** in above table) for power (called Midspan PSE and Alternative B or Mode B), one scheme uses ONLY pairs 1,2 and 3,6 (Endpoint PSE, Alternative A or Mode A) for both signals and power. Depending on which scheme you use pairs 4,5 and 7,8 may be required.

4. Gigabit Ethernet requires all 4 pairs (8 conductors).

5. All our wiring is now done to the 100base-T4 spec which you can use with 10baseT networks - but NOT the other way around.

10baseT Crossed cable (PC to PC or HUB to HUB)

Crossed cables are used to connect PCs to one other PC or to connect a HUB to a HUB. Crossed cables are sometimes called Crossover, Patch or Jumper cables. If your connection is PC to HUB you MUST use a Straight cable.

The following description shows the wiring at both ends (male RJ45 connectors) of the crossed cable.

One end RJ45 Male	Other end RJ45 Male
1	3
2	6
3	1
4 *	5 *
5 *	4 *
6	2
7 *	8 *
8 *	7 *

NOTES:

1. Items marked * are not necessary for 10M LANs but since you will be moving shortly to 100MB LANs (won't you) you will save yourself a LOT OF TIME finding crappy cable (that you made) that does not work. Instead we suggest you wire to 100BaseT standards.
2. We use RED for crossed cables (or more commonly now a red heat-shrink collar at each end).
3. All our crossed wiring is done to the 100base-T4 spec which you can use with 10baseT networks - but NOT always the other way around.

10baseT Straight Cable (PC to HUB/SWITCH)

Straight cables are used to connect PCs or other equipment to a HUB or Switch. If your connection is PC to PC or HUB to HUB you MUST use a Crossed cable.

The following cable description is for the wiring of both ends (RJ45 Male connectors) with the 568B category 5(e) wiring colors you could, of course, use the 568A colour scheme.

Pin No.	strand color	Name
1	white and orange	TX+
2	orange	TX-
3	white and green	RX+
4	NC	*
5	NC	*
6	green	RX-
7	NC	*
8	NC	*

NOTE: Items marked * are not necessary for 10M LANs (10base-T) but since you will be moving shortly to 100MB LANs (won't you) you will save yourself a LOT OF TIME finding crappy cable (that you made) that does not work. Instead we suggest you wire to 100Base-T4 standards. After all you gotta stick the ends somewhere man.

We use BLUE for 10base-T straight cables. NOTE: All our wiring is now done to the 100base-T4 spec which you can use with 10base-T networks - but NOT necessarily the other way around.

Category 5(e) (UTP) colour coding table

Category 5(e) (UTP) colour coding table

The following table shows the normal colour coding for category 5 cables (4 pair) based on the two standards supported by TIA/EIA.

These standards apply to the color code used within any SINGLE cable run - BOTH ENDS MUST USE THE SAME STANDARD. However, since they both use the same pinout at the connectors you can mix 568A and 568B cables in any installation.

Crossed and Straight cables - when to use them

The following diagram shows the Normal use of Crossed and Straight cables (see also the notes below).

Notes:

1. We show Straight cables as BLUE and Crossed as RED. That is our convention. The cable color can be anything you choose or, more likely, the vendor decides.
2. To avoid the need for Crossed cables many vendors provide UPLINK ports on Hubs or Switches - these are specially designed to allow the use of a STRAIGHT cable when connecting back-to-back Hubs or Switches. Read the manufacturers documentation carefully.
3.

Increasingly vendor hubs (can you still buy them) and switches will auto-detect the connection type and internally switch the connectors so that STRAIGHT cables can be used everywhere.

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