USB Card Reader causes total Freezeup

[not_you@my.dotcom]

I have Win98se.
I have a card reader for my SD camera cards.
I have used this card for months with no problem.
Yesterday I plugged the card into my USB port and the computer froze
up. I got a blue screen with a lengthy message with lots of technical
jargon that I did not understand. It told me to press Y (yes) to
continue running Windows, or N (no) to exit. After several tries, and
regardless if I pressed the Y or the N, left the card reader in the
computer, or unplugged it, my computer just froze up. Nothing worked,
I could not do a CTRL ALT DEL, or anything else, except shut off the
power.

That error message told me to run SETUP.EXE for windows. I ran it
once from Dos and that did not fix the problem. I finally loaded
windows (without that card), deleted all the installed USB drivers
from Control Panel /...../ Device Manager, and clicked SETUP from my
install CD (files on harddrive).

After that, I can use the card reader again.....

Everything seems fine now, and I did not lose any settings running the
reinstall on top of what I had. However, I am curious what could
cause this mess? Yes, I was doing some system modifications before
this happened). I'm just curious why?????

The weird thing is that my USB mouse worked perfectly the whole time,
yet that card reader just caused complete failure.

Note: I do have some 3rd party utility installed, to make the USB port
recognise anything I plug into them. That worked well until this
crash.....

 

[MEB]

Didn't give us much to work with.

Device- manufacturer, model.

Is it a third party application or is it a device driver [as in universal]?

What type of system modifications?

--
MEB http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com
--
_________

<not_you@my.dotcom> wrote in message
newslqn14dcfs7psqieuuda7dvb6fsepk5tdf@4ax.com...
| I have Win98se.
| I have a card reader for my SD camera cards.
| I have used this card for months with no problem.
| Yesterday I plugged the card into my USB port and the computer froze
| up. I got a blue screen with a lengthy message with lots of technical
| jargon that I did not understand. It told me to press Y (yes) to
| continue running Windows, or N (no) to exit. After several tries, and
| regardless if I pressed the Y or the N, left the card reader in the
| computer, or unplugged it, my computer just froze up. Nothing worked,
| I could not do a CTRL ALT DEL, or anything else, except shut off the
| power.
|
| That error message told me to run SETUP.EXE for windows. I ran it
| once from Dos and that did not fix the problem. I finally loaded
| windows (without that card), deleted all the installed USB drivers
| from Control Panel /...../ Device Manager, and clicked SETUP from my
| install CD (files on harddrive).
|
| After that, I can use the card reader again.....
|
| Everything seems fine now, and I did not lose any settings running the
| reinstall on top of what I had. However, I am curious what could
| cause this mess? Yes, I was doing some system modifications before
| this happened). I'm just curious why?????
|
| The weird thing is that my USB mouse worked perfectly the whole time,
| yet that card reader just caused complete failure.
|
| Note: I do have some 3rd party utility installed, to make the USB port
| recognise anything I plug into them. That worked well until this
| crash.....
|
|

 

[philo]

<not_you@my.dotcom> wrote in message
newslqn14dcfs7psqieuuda7dvb6fsepk5tdf@4ax.com...
> I have Win98se.
> I have a card reader for my SD camera cards.
> I have used this card for months with no problem.
> Yesterday I plugged the card into my USB port and the computer froze
> up. I got a blue screen with a lengthy message with lots of technical
> jargon that I did not understand.

Had you copied that down and reposted it here...
someone may have been able to sort things out.

It told me to press Y (yes) to
> continue running Windows, or N (no) to exit. After several tries, and
> regardless if I pressed the Y or the N, left the card reader in the
> computer, or unplugged it, my computer just froze up. Nothing worked,
> I could not do a CTRL ALT DEL, or anything else, except shut off the
> power.
>
> That error message told me to run SETUP.EXE for windows. I ran it
> once from Dos and that did not fix the problem. I finally loaded
> windows (without that card), deleted all the installed USB drivers
> from Control Panel /...../ Device Manager, and clicked SETUP from my
> install CD (files on harddrive)


If your registry was corrupted..
reinstalling windows back over itself would not have repaired the damage.

Though, without seeing your original error messages I could not possibly
tell what your original problem was. All I can say is that *if* the problem
was a corrupted registry...and all else on the machine was OK
then you could have run scanreg /restore from dos even if the machine did
not boot to windows (GUI mode)

If you had at least tried that first...there is at least the possibility
your machine could have been fixed without a total reinstalltion.
Since you machine is running OK now...your hardware is probably fine.

FWIF: Although I never had any USB problems as severe as you have experience
when I was using Win98 on a daily basis...It was due to USB problems that I
eventually
switched over to Win2000.

The most important thing is that you keep your data backed up...
though Windows can of course always be reinstalled...
your data are of utmost importance!

> After that, I can use the card reader again.....
>
> Everything seems fine now, and I did not lose any settings running the
> reinstall on top of what I had. However, I am curious what could
> cause this mess? Yes, I was doing some system modifications before
> this happened). I'm just curious why?????
>
> The weird thing is that my USB mouse worked perfectly the whole time,
> yet that card reader just caused complete failure.
>
> Note: I do have some 3rd party utility installed, to make the USB port
> recognise anything I plug into them. That worked well until this
> crash.....
>
>

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Your system modifications may or may not been involved. Sounds like they
were. But we don't know what they were, so it's kinda hard to blame them --
yet. Maybe your drivers installations for whatever hardware is involved in
the card reader got fouled up and you went to extraordinary lengths to
reinstall the drivers. Maybe there was a SNAFU when you inserted the card
and that SNAFU caused the hardware to misbehave so drastically as to prompt
those rather drastic error messages you got. End of story, because there's
no way now to figure out, really, what made the drivers installation foul up
(unless you kept perfect records of your "modifications".)

I'd be more concerned about the overinstall you did (installing Windows over
the top of itself.) That tends to really foul up machines that are mature
and fully updated. You now have a mish-mash of files that in some cases are
retrogrades (you replaced newer updated files with older versions) and your
system is now prone to what's known as DLL Hell. Good luck with your
machine. Personally, at this point, I'd reformat and start over entirely.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

<not_you@my.dotcom> wrote in message
newslqn14dcfs7psqieuuda7dvb6fsepk5tdf@4ax.com...
>I have Win98se.
> I have a card reader for my SD camera cards.
> I have used this card for months with no problem.
> Yesterday I plugged the card into my USB port and the computer froze
> up. I got a blue screen with a lengthy message with lots of technical
> jargon that I did not understand. It told me to press Y (yes) to
> continue running Windows, or N (no) to exit. After several tries, and
> regardless if I pressed the Y or the N, left the card reader in the
> computer, or unplugged it, my computer just froze up. Nothing worked,
> I could not do a CTRL ALT DEL, or anything else, except shut off the
> power.
>
> That error message told me to run SETUP.EXE for windows. I ran it
> once from Dos and that did not fix the problem. I finally loaded
> windows (without that card), deleted all the installed USB drivers
> from Control Panel /...../ Device Manager, and clicked SETUP from my
> install CD (files on harddrive).
>
> After that, I can use the card reader again.....
>
> Everything seems fine now, and I did not lose any settings running the
> reinstall on top of what I had. However, I am curious what could
> cause this mess? Yes, I was doing some system modifications before
> this happened). I'm just curious why?????
>
> The weird thing is that my USB mouse worked perfectly the whole time,
> yet that card reader just caused complete failure.
>
> Note: I do have some 3rd party utility installed, to make the USB port
> recognise anything I plug into them. That worked well until this
> crash.....
>
>

 

[not_you@my.dotcom]

On Sat, 3 May 2008 03:31:10 -0400, "MEB" <meb@not here@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Didn't give us much to work with.
>
> Device- manufacturer, model.
>
IBM Net Vista PIII 1GHZ computer

> Is it a third party application or is it a device driver [as in universal]?
>
It's a freeware utility called nusb32e.exe

>What type of system modifications?
>
Was trying to install an internal modem in a PCI slot. It kept giving
me hardware conflict errors and/or just refused to work. After
pissing around with it for many, MANY hours, I removed it, threw it in
the garbage, and went and bought an external modem which I plugged
into a serial port and had it installed in less than 5 minutes. I
should have tossed that internal modem in the trash before I even
attempted to install it. Those damn things are always a pain in the
ass. While trying to install the modem, I never did anything to the
USB ports. However I do have a USB 2.0 card plugged into one of the
PCI slots, and also have the USB 1.x that came built into the
motherboard. (both work).
I did try to remove one of the serial ports on the computer while
attempting to install the modem, Windows kept reinstalling them
everytime I would do a reboot. That change, plus installing modem
drivers was mainly what I did. I also added and removed modem drivers
numerous times. That's about all I did, so I have no idea why the USB
was affected. (Next time I get my hands on an external modem, it goes
in the garbage before I even look at the computer).

 

[MEB]

<not_you@my.dotcom> wrote in message
news:ipep14hlhu98d78l3595i5a3ib2ainjph2@4ax.com...
| On Sat, 3 May 2008 03:31:10 -0400, "MEB" <meb@not here@hotmail.com>
| wrote:
|
| >Didn't give us much to work with.
| >
| > Device- manufacturer, model.
| >
| IBM Net Vista PIII 1GHZ computer
|
| > Is it a third party application or is it a device driver [as in
universal]?
| >
| It's a freeware utility called nusb32e.exe

Ah, that's a universal driver for USB, part of which provides the *drivers*
for numerous devices. The version you are using is 3.2e.
As for the mouse remaing working, its likely supported via the BIOS and/or
its own driver..

|
| >What type of system modifications?
| >
| Was trying to install an internal modem in a PCI slot. It kept giving
| me hardware conflict errors and/or just refused to work. After
| pissing around with it for many, MANY hours, I removed it, threw it in
| the garbage, and went and bought an external modem which I plugged
| into a serial port and had it installed in less than 5 minutes. I
| should have tossed that internal modem in the trash before I even
| attempted to install it. Those damn things are always a pain in the
| ass. While trying to install the modem, I never did anything to the
| USB ports. However I do have a USB 2.0 card plugged into one of the
| PCI slots, and also have the USB 1.x that came built into the
| motherboard. (both work).
| I did try to remove one of the serial ports on the computer while
| attempting to install the modem, Windows kept reinstalling them
| everytime I would do a reboot. That change, plus installing modem
| drivers was mainly what I did. I also added and removed modem drivers
| numerous times. That's about all I did, so I have no idea why the USB
| was affected. (Next time I get my hands on an external modem, it goes
| in the garbage before I even look at the computer).
|

Boy I can relate to that story.
Most internal modems are junk produced to work {cough} only with Windows,
being *softmodems*. Trying to get the *proper* driver AND get it installed
properly can be a real study in patience. What might have happened was that
the modem wanted to use the addressing and/or IRQs already being used, which
caused conflict with the already defined system. IF you ever try a softmodem
install in the future, try to do that before installing or after
uninstalling the universal USB driver [and cleaning that up as it puts a lot
of NT/XP files in the system]. Remarkably, some of the externals are now
also basically softmodem style.
There is always the possibility that you temporarily caused a *disconnect*
[bad contact - bumped the card and it lost contact] in the add-in USB card,
which would also have caused havoc.

Here's a question for the Windows junkies: why the heck do you think
removing 12 cents worth of electronics from a hard modem, making it a
softmodem, makes that a sensible idea. When by doing so, you increase the
need for memory, time slices, and other as the system MUST provide the
processing rather than the 12 cents worth of electronics. When you get that
one figured out, apply that to ALL the devices now using that same idea in
Windows.

--
MEB http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com
--
_________