Win10 Update Problem?

[FoxLady 121]

Can someone hazard a guess as to what's happening here?

 

I have an external USB drive on my laptop.

Ordinarily File Explorer/My Computer finds the internal, the external and DVD drive....except after a Win 10 update (as happened last night)

 

From then on, the USB drive "disappears", until I uninstall all the USB Host Controllers in Device Manager and re-boot (thereby re-installing them). From then on, fine...until the next update.

 

Any ideas why this is happening? 

[FoxLady 121]

168 views, but no suggestions!

 

Thanks to the 168 for checking anyway.

[RollingJ 2,040]

@FoxLady - sorry, I must have missed this. I haven't done any research, having only just spotted it. I don't use W10 (or any flavour of Windows) after W7 as I think Redmond has lost its way, but I suspect, from bits I have spotted on other W10 update foul-ups, that will have been caused by a recent update.

 

I'll have a look tomorrow if I get chance, but try Googling the issue - I'd be amazed if you weren't the only one affected by bad updates.

[FoxLady 121]

Thanks, RollingJ.

 

It looks like USBSTOR.sys  dated 15 October 2021 is the culprit.

"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)

The driver could not be loaded because a previous version of the driver is still in memory."

 

Unfortunately the option to roll back to a previous driver is greyed out, so will have to do some digging to find out why.

[RollingJ 2,040]

1 minute ago, FoxLady said:

Thanks, RollingJ.

 

It looks like USBSTOR.sys  dated 15 October 2021 is the culprit.

"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)

The driver could not be loaded because a previous version of the driver is still in memory."

 

Unfortunately the option to roll back to a previous driver is greyed out, so will have to do some digging to find out why.

Glad you've found the answer, because I'm afraid I am having computer-related issues that mean I can't be of much help for a couple of days (at least). Post back if you can't solve it, and I'll see if I have any more ideas, but I am away three days next week, so it could be a while. Please note W10 and its aggravating issues are not my strong  point as I gave up on it a couple of years back.

[swarfendor437 14]

Read this post in its entirety:

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-error-code-38/d1f205e0-b990-4834-a50e-83fdd637407d

 

Especially the reply below the official response about how to power down to flush the culprit. I also wonder if you go to Power Settings and change the Advanced hidden power settings to turn off the sleep function of the hard drive (it never gets shut down to speed up boot times).

 

If there are not specific applications you depend upon, might be worth looking at GNU/Linux. I used nothing but GNU/Linux during lockdown up until my retirement - did everything I had to do at work without Windows 10!

[FoxLady 121]

21 hours ago, swarfendor437 said:

Read this post in its entirety:

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-error-code-38/d1f205e0-b990-4834-a50e-83fdd637407d

 

Especially the reply below the official response about how to power down to flush the culprit. I also wonder if you go to Power Settings and change the Advanced hidden power settings to turn off the sleep function of the hard drive (it never gets shut down to speed up boot times).

 

If there are not specific applications you depend upon, might be worth looking at GNU/Linux. I used nothing but GNU/Linux during lockdown up until my retirement - did everything I had to do at work without Windows 10!

Many thanks - I hadn't been able to solve it other than by uninstalling each USB host controller and rebooting - and who wants to do that every time?! - so a permanent solution will be welcome!