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OS/2 - Technical => Hardware => Topic started by: lewhoo on 2008.11.05, 14:34:58

Title: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.05, 14:34:58
Hello, I have following problem.

I can access my Fat32 16 GB pendrive on my notebook with ECS rc3 installed. I cannot do so on my ACP1 machine. I've copied USB files from OS2/BOOT of ECS to my ACP1, Fat32.ifs version is the same, but on ACP1 machine removable is visible as 32 MB and cannot be accesed or ejected...

Anyone can help?
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: jep on 2008.11.05, 18:10:55
Hello,

Please specify which kind of USB you have on those machines, UHCI, EHCI or ...

I guess you can use the eCS boot CD to find out, if you can't see it as it is now.

//Jan-Erik
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: RobertM on 2008.11.06, 19:30:58
lewhoo,

Have you also updated the USB MSD driver components? It sounds like there is a component that still hasnt been updated.

Some more USB info (including some info on updating older versions of OS/2) can be found:
http://www.os2warp.be/index2.php?name=usbsite

And following this thread here:
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Comp/comp.os.os2.setup.storage/2006-01/msg00029.html




A few variant USB packages are located here (cw-usb packages):
http://www.os2site.com/sw/drivers/usb/index.html

Don't use the drivers in those packages, but instead, if so inclined, refer to the readme and instructions file(s) located in the archives.



And of course, as Jan-Erik pointed out, if you provide us some more information, we'll be able to help you with an answer better tailored to your specific situation.

Robert
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: Pete on 2008.11.06, 22:17:50
There is a handy little USB configuration tool complete with Help containing a USB Removables FAQ here http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/system/usbcfgb7a.zip

Regards

Pete
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.08, 16:38:18
Thanks all for help!

Following referenced news topics I found, that I should update os2dasd.dmd. So did I and it works now.

However - not stable. I tried copying large file with FC/2. It has some freeze moments in both reading and writing. And while writing it froze completely finally. I tried other disk activity after that and than PMShell hanged...

I am not sure what may cause this instability yet.
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: The Blue Warper on 2008.11.08, 19:15:56
Hi, lewhoo,
are you using the latest FAT32.IFS driver?  Perhaps that might make a difference in your case?
The latest version that I'm aware of is 0.9.12 fix 1, and you can find it on netlabs FTP site.  Here's the link (just in case):
ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/fat32/
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.09, 17:42:17
I updated FAT32.IFS. Unfortunately. no change. Still very unstable when writing :( Maybe some of you have another idea?
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: RobertM on 2008.11.09, 20:22:10
lewhoo,

There are some flags (to add to the config.sys on the fat32 driver line) that may assist with that. In addition, always make sure you stop the media before "ejecting" it - and once stopped, do not access any icon for the media or anything on it (as this will re-access the media and you will have to repeat the process).

There should be supplemental information that came with the driver file to assist you in this. You may also wish to visit this page (section 2.4) for some additional notes (the page may e a bit outdated, so I am not sure how much of it will apply):

http://www.os2warp.be/index2.php?name=cwusb


Hopefully someone here with a working, stable FAT32 implementation can help further. If not, let us know and I will dig through the documentation.

Robert

Robert
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: The Blue Warper on 2008.11.09, 22:30:13
lewhoo,

just another quick thought: I know there's a /CD parameter you can set in the ACPI line in the config.sys.  This parameter stands for "Crazy Device" and its use is suggested (if I recall correctly the instructions in the docs) with USB devices acting 'strange', or showing bad or odd behaviour.  I don't know if this can help in your case, but you might want to try (or perhaps to experiment with some other parameter).
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.09, 23:16:47
On my ACP1 machine I don't use acpi at all, so this can't be it...

I had a quick look on FAT32.IFS switches, but nothing came to my mind. I mean I have identical switches as on ECS machine, on which this pendrive works fine...

I'm thinking about trying FATMON
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: ivan on 2008.11.09, 23:28:04
Have you checked the simple things like using the latest dani drivers?  I assume the latest eCS uses the most up to date ones, your ACP1 won't unless you manually updated them.

My 4 GB usb stick works on my ACP2 machine without problems, but then it is as up to date as I can make it.
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.10, 01:19:23
I updated DANI (my scsi aspi drivers no longer work, but that's other issue ;) ) and checked for fat32 dll conflicts. Still the same. I'll keep on looking - maybe there is a driver not updated which I haven't thought of so far...
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: The Blue Warper on 2008.11.11, 02:21:43
Quote from: lewhoo on 2008.11.09, 23:16:47
On my ACP1 machine I don't use acpi at all, so this can't be it...

Oh, sorry, I misread ACP1 for ACPI...
But then it could be something related to LVM.  Did you check the OS2DASD.DMD version on the ACP1 system?  Is it at the same level as your eCS system?  And the other LVM-related files (such as LVM.DLL)?
This is something that did change after the ACP1 release, so this is perhaps the reason why you've got USB MSDs working in eCS only.
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: onlineuser2 on 2008.11.11, 12:00:38
Did the usb pen ever work in any os/2 previous release?

May it be a hardware problem?

Once upon a time I read somewhere in the web (?!!?) about the usb standard which was not always respcted by producers (only win compatibility controlled).

As for me, once I became crazy about a pen drive untile I dismissed it and found other brand pens working perfectly.

Before trying to work about it may be worth while to test another one usb pen.

Did you do it already?

Onlineuser2
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.13, 23:41:37
I updated OS2LVM.DMD and LVM.DLL. Didn't help.

I agree, that it is possible, that it is something that changed between ACP1 and ECS, although it's hard to find what. I'm not sure what's important.

I didn't try another pendrive - I have no access to. But I guess that if it works perfectly on ECS on one machine, it should work on other... Or maybe USB of my old mainboard is not handled that well? Definetely it is in 1.0 speed on the ACP1 machine, and 2.0 speed on ECS... But that should not make a stability difference...

I'll keep looking and thanks you all for ideas.
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: RobertM on 2008.11.14, 03:33:27
Quote from: lewhoo on 2008.11.13, 23:41:37
Or maybe USB of my old mainboard is not handled that well? Definetely it is in 1.0 speed on the ACP1 machine, and 2.0 speed on ECS... But that should not make a stability difference...


Unless the drive doesnt properly work with USB 1 - I have seen some such products labelled USB 2.0 only. I also have a couple 8GB USB thumb drives (purchased from and branded as MicroCenter) that work abysmally on USB 1.1 but fly on 2.0 - yeah I expect there to be a difference in performance - but this is beyond that. It took most of a day to copy a couple gigs of data on the older USB (and that was tried on both a Compaq XP Pro machine with functioning USB - worked with everything else... and an HP Proliant Server with Win Server 2003). Flew through the same data on a newer Compaq and on a newer Dell - both of which had USB 2.0 (and XP Pro).


But also, it could be a chipset which poorly implements the USB specs - thus eCS's drivers, looking for full support, are running into an issue.

It could also possibly be a shared IRQ issue, where something else is being polled (or being talked to) which is preventing/stopping/lagging access to the USB port sharing the IRQ with the other device.

Robert
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.11.14, 05:21:42
As Robert noted, not all USB Host controllers are created equally. The VIA Enhanced Host Controller on my desktop yields much slower throughput than the VIA Enhanced Host controller on my netbook though by all standards except TDP my desktop is worlds faster than my netbook. Have you used LVM to force assign a drive letter to the device? My M:robe would not mount properly until I did this though everything else was fine with it.
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.15, 16:41:37
I think, or rather hope, I solved it. I guess the solution should be the first think I should think of...

I was testing my USB pluging pendrive to the computer case USB ports. Seems, that if I plug it into mainboard port directly, it works fine...

I came to this idea, because the pendrive didn't work even if I booted from ecs rc4 CD with fat32. Was exactly the same behaviour. Due to your ideas, that it may be a hardware issue, I plugged it into mainboard and performed many file copies. Works so far (however max writing speed is ~2.3 MB/s).

The strange thing that remains is that eject from WPS popup menu does not have any effect and from the command line works.
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: RobertM on 2008.11.15, 21:54:49
Quote from: lewhoo on 2008.11.15, 16:41:37
The strange thing that remains is that eject from WPS popup menu does not have any effect and from the command line works.

Hi lewhoo,

Congrats on finding the solution. As for the eject issue, a workaround would be to create an icon to a batch/script file that calls the commandline eject.

If the drive letter stays the same, you can simply make a batch file. If it does not, you can make it provide you a simple selector (or pass it one by dragging and dropping the drive onto the icon for the commandline batch file icon), or you can write a simple REXX script that gets the drive letters, looks for that drive and ejects it calling the commandline eject command.

Hope that helps till someone figures out how to get the WPS eject function to work for you.

Robert
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: DavidG on 2008.11.16, 06:27:11
You can also use LVMGUI to assign a permanent drive letter to your pen drive.  I have done this many times.
Title: Re: USB pendrive on ACP1
Post by: lewhoo on 2008.11.16, 12:33:57
To be honest the eject problem is not a real issue. I have a permanent drive letter assigned also. Rather, I'd love to see full speed on this pendrive, however I know that's a deep OS/2 problem.