BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

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CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by CyberSimian »

Brian K wrote:
> CyberSimian,
>
> Did you try the BIBM BIOS option instead of the BIBM USB option? Sorry if
> you have already reported the result.

Yes, I did try that. When I tested the Maxtor and Western Digital USB2 drives, BIBM showed those using the default BIBM setting ("BIOS"). But when I tested the problem Seagate drive, the BIBM "BIOS" setting did not show the Seagate. I tried the other settings -- "BIOS (direct)", and "USB". The "BIOS (direct)" setting behaved the same as "BIOS", while the "USB" setting did not show any disks at all.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
mjnelson99
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:24 am

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by mjnelson99 »

Don't remember if you have tried with the hard drive connected directly.
I have had problems when using a hub on USB 3.

I also get better results over all with a hub with only one hard drive
attached. That statement may be separate from your problem.

Mary


On 8/11/2016 4:45 PM, CyberSimian wrote:
> TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
>> Do you have any different settings configured in BING vs. BIBM?
>
> I have just been comparing them. There were some differences, but nothing that looked as though it might be significant. For example, "BootNow support" was enabled in BIBM, but disabled in BING. So I disabled it in BIBM too, but it does not seem likely that that would cause the problem. Nevertheless, I altered the BIBM settings to be as similar as possible to BING, and retested... without success.
>
> ![:(]({SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_sad.gif)
>
> Just for fun I tried booting the BING floppy on the Lenovo. Although BING does not support the GPT, I believe that GPT disks contain a "protective" MBR that defines the entire disk as a single partition, so it should be benign. BING started to boot (BING displayed the EMBR version number), but then it seemed to get stuck, with nothing obvious happening. A similar thing happened when I tried to boot a PC DOS floppy several weeks ago.
>
> I am actually quite puzzled now as to how I created the BIBM partition images of the Lenovo partitions. It is possible that the images were written to some other disk, and then copied to the Seagate, but I don't remember doing that. If I didn't do that, something must now be different, but what is it?
>
> ![:?]({SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_confused.gif)
>
> -- from CyberSimian in the UK
>
>
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by CyberSimian »

CyberSimian wrote:
> I am actually quite puzzled now as to how I created the BIBM partition images of the
> Lenovo partitions. It is possible that the images were written to some other disk,
> and then copied to the Seagate, but I don't remember doing that.

I now remember what I did. :) The partition images were of the partitions on the SSD, while the internal 1TB hard disk was completely empty. So I imaged the SSD partitions onto the internal 1TB hard disk, and later copied them to the Seagate disk. I have confirmed this by installing RECUVA and recovering most of the image files from the root directory of the internal 1TB disk.

So there is no evidence that the problem Seagate drive has ever worked correctly with BIBM. Apologies for giving incorrect info in earlier posts.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by CyberSimian »

mjnelson99 wrote:
> Don't remember if you have tried with the hard drive connected directly.
> I have had problems when using a hub on USB 3.

The USB2 drives that I have tested have all been connected directly to the laptop (not via a hub), and all of the later tests have been performed with the problem Seagate drive connected to the one-and-only USB2 socket on this laptop (just in case the problem was caused by some incompatibility with USB3 sockets). However, BIBM boots happily from a USB3 socket. :)

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
mjnelson99
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:24 am

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by mjnelson99 »

I could not even use an external DVD burner on USB 2.
It took too much power.


On 8/11/2016 5:27 PM, CyberSimian wrote:
> mjnelson99 wrote:
>> Don't remember if you have tried with the hard drive connected directly.
>> I have had problems when using a hub on USB 3.
>
> The USB2 drives that I have tested have all been connected directly to the laptop (not via a hub), and all of the later tests have been performed with the problem Seagate drive connected to the one-and-only USB2 socket on this laptop (just in case the problem was caused by some incompatibility with USB3 sockets). However, BIBM boots happily from a USB3 socket.
>
> ![:)]({SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif)
>
> -- from CyberSimian in the UK
>
>
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by CyberSimian »

mjnelson99 wrote:
> I could not even use an external DVD burner on USB 2.
> It took too much power.

The problem Seagate drive has its own mains power supply, so I don't think that that is causing the problem here. But I do agree that some external devices require more power than the USB bus can provide.

I had a photo-backup external 2.5 inch drive that would barely power up when plugged into a USB socket, but the manufacturer had provided TWO USB leads, and both had to be connected in order to get reliable operation. One lead transported the signal and provided some power, the other lead provided additional power.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by CyberSimian »

Based on the tests that I have performed, this is the situation as I currently understand it:

(1) I have TWO samples of the problem Seagate USB2 disk. These disks have their own mains power supply (they are not bus-powered).

(2) Both samples exhibit the same problem, namely that BIBM 1.32 cannot see them when BIBM is booted from a USB3 socket on my Lenovo Ideapad 700-15ISK laptop, and the disk is connected to a USB2 socket. I have also tried other socket combinations, and other USB cables, with the same result.

(3) Windows 10 has no problem seeing and operating either disk. I conclude from the foregoing points that it is unlikely that the disks have developed a hardware fault.

(4) BING on a 12-year-old Sony laptop CAN see the problem Seagate disks, and Windows XP on that laptop can too.

(5) BIBM on the Sony laptop CANNOT see the problem Seagate disks. The ONLY difference between (4) and (5) is the software, i.e. BING versus BIBM.

(6) So the problem seems to be with BIBM. Now the problem could be the BIBM settings, but I compared the BIBM settings with the BING settings, and made them as similar as possible (some BIBM settings don't exist in BING), but this did not make a difference. BIBM still cannot see the Seagate disks.

Speculation:
We now have five USB standards (1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1), and for all I know there may have been intermediate minor revisions to these standards. In addition, each manufacturer of USB controller chips will interpret the standard in the way that he believes to be correct. If a standard is written rather imprecisely, different USB controller chips may behave differently in certain circumstances.

The job of the software (BIBM in this case) is to cope with the variations in responses from USB controller chips and USB devices. I suspect that the piece of code in BING that deals with the response from devices like the Seagate disk has been accidentally omitted from BIBM, or (more likely) tests earlier in the processing in BIBM are slightly incorrect, with the result that the code that deals with the Seagate response never gets executed (so BIBM concludes that the response is invalid and does not recognise the device).

This is the Seagate disk:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Disasse ... Harddrive/

Also here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw_bFrAY58c

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
Last edited by CyberSimian on Sun Aug 14, 2016 4:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
sigi
Posts: 243
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 1:59 am

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by sigi »

CyberSimian,

I experienced such erratic behaviour of BIBM wrt recognition of different USB hard drives before and experimented with BIBM's USB Settings. I found out that if I left all USB items unchecked, plugged in the USB devices while being in BIBM maintenance mode and rebooted, the USB device would be detected.

From then on I always create my BIBM Boot CD with MakeDisk with the USB Settings uchchecked (see Attachment).
Attachments
MakeDisk USB Settings .png
MakeDisk USB Settings .png (23.35 KiB) Viewed 6929 times
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by CyberSimian »

sigi wrote:
> I experienced such erratic behaviour of BIBM wrt recognition of different
> USB hard drives before and experimented with BIBM's USB Settings. I found
> out that if I left all USB items unchecked, plugged in the USB devices
> while being in BIBM maintenance mode and rebooted, the USB device would be
> detected.

Yesterday I re-created my BIBM memory stick, accepting the BIBM defaults for all settings other than 1394 (Firewire) support, which I disabled. Sadly, this has not altered the outcome. :(

BING sometimes had a problem with USB devices, so I got into the habit of leaving USB disks powered off while BING was booting, and powering them on and allowing them to spin up immediately before entering "Partition Work". That seemed to avoid problems (at least, for me). But that does not work with BIBM.

With BIBM, it seems to be necessary to power on the USB disks before BIBM starts to boot. I assume that this is because BIBM scans the USB bus at boot time, whereas BING scans the USB bus each time "Partition Work" is entered.

Anyway, I have just tried BOTH ways on my 12-year-old Sony, booting BIBM from the floppy. In neither case was BIBM able to see the Seagate disk. :(

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM Can't See My USB Hard Drive

Post by CyberSimian »

CyberSimian wrote:
> Anyway, I have just tried BOTH ways on my 12-year-old Sony, booting BIBM from the
> floppy. In neither case was BIBM able to see the Seagate disk. :(

I have just re-created my BIBM floppy, using 1.32 in place of 1.31f, and using BIBM defaults for all settings other than 1394 support. This time BIBM on the Sony saw the Seagate whichever way I powered on the Seagate (i.e. powered on before BIBM boot, or powered on just before entry to "Partition Work"). :) However, in both cases the disk was visible only when "USB" was selected for the bus in "Partition Work". (Perhaps this is to be expected?)

Testing again my Lenovo 700-15ISK, the Seagate is still not visible. Other USB memory sticks are visible when "BIOS" is selected for the bus (if plugged in at BIBM boot), and are not visible when "USB" is selected. But the Seagate is not visible on either bus. :?

What does all this mean? I don't know! :? :? :?

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
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