Cannot access storage devices, but USB works for anything else.

[Braescher]

I have recently bought a Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H motherboard. There is something strange going on with the USB ports. When I was installing Windows the motherboard could not recognize my flash drive in the boot selection. In fact the screen froze on the "Gigabyte logo" screen during boot until I removed the flash drive. I was able to "force" the mobo to recognize the drive by connecting the drive to an HDD Dock Station then connecting the dock station to the computer.

Windows instaled just fine with this method but now I cannot open and explore the contents of any storage device. All the UBS peripherals work just fine. I have my UBS keyboard and mouse, Xbox 360 controller and even an USB audio interface working fine.

Windows does recognize the drives in plug. I have tried with two different drives and my cellphone (both internal memory and SD cards). I can see the drives on the "devices and printers" (not sure if this is the name on english windows because I am using portuguese windows) screen, I can see it on device manager, I can eject the devices and windows even names the devices correctly but I cannot open the drives on explorer. Sometimes explorer shows the drive on "My computer" but when I click on drive it tells me to "Insert a device on E:\".

There is no specific USB drivers on the Gigabyte support page for the mobo and device manager says that all the USB drivers are updated and installed correctly. Windows registry seems to have assigned drive letters correctly as well. Also, I have deactivated the "allow windows to turn this off to save energy" options.

I don't know what could possibly fix this issue.

Edit as requested:
CPU: Intel Core i7 2600
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H (rev 1.0)
Ram: 16 GB / 4x 4 GB Kingston 1333 mhz
SSD/HDD: Seagate ST1000DX001 Hybrid SSHD 3,5' (8GB SSD)1TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache Sata 6Gb/s
GPU: GALAX GeForce GTX 970 Gamer OC 4GB DDR5 256 bit
PSU: Corsair Cx500 500w
Chassis: Cooler Master HAF 912
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
Peripherals: Xbox 360 Wirelles Controller and Wireless Adapter
USB Keyboard Tc196 Multilaser Warrior
USB Mouse Dell Wm123
M-audio Fast Track Pro USB Audio Interface

 

[Lutfij]

1| When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs inclusive of your OS. List them as:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Peripherals:

2| Have you made sure your motherboard BIOS is up to date?

3| A thumb rule is to have all your peripherals disconnected, except the keyboard, mouse and the bootable USB installer. In fact the aforementioned peripherals should all be connected to USB 2.0 ports. If not USB 2.0 ports are available, make sure they are connected to the rear panel USB3.0 ports.

4| You may also want to follow through the tutorial found here.

 

[Braescher]

1| When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs inclusive of your OS.

Main post edited.

2| Have you made sure your motherboard BIOS is up to date?

I am running F14 version and the most recent version on the website is F15. Not sure I need to update because the changelog says it improves SATA compatibility only. I have bricked a mobo in the past while updating BIOS so I avoid updating unless it is crucial to do so.

3| A thumb rule is to have all your peripherals disconnected, except the keyboard, mouse and the bootable USB installer. In fact the aforementioned peripherals should all be connected to USB 2.0 ports. If not USB 2.0 ports are available, make sure they are connected to the rear panel USB3.0 ports.

I have done that during the windows install and when I was installing software and drivers. I have only connected the peripherals after the proper drivers were installed. And even before connecting and installing the drivers for the peripherals the problem was ocurring. Right now the peripherals connected to the USB 3.0 ports are the Xbox controller and the Audio Interface.

4| You may also want to follow through the tutorial found here.

Most ot the mobo features are pretty much plug & play for Windows 10. Here is the support page on Gigabyte's website:
http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-B75M-D3H-rev-10#support-dl

There we have HD audio driver (that I did not need because the audio was working anyway) that I did install, Intel Management Engine and INF installation (both installed), Realtek LAN driver (not installed and not sure I need it), the BIOS that I mentioned above and some utility software that I don't have much use for.


QUICK EDIT: There is an USB 3.0 driver for Windows 7 on the page. Is it worth to download and try even if I am on Windows 10?

 

[Braescher]

I don't exactly know if this forum is ok with bumping old threads, but since I never got a solution to this issue I think that writting another thread would be redundant. The problem still persists. I have tried multiple things since the original post, so if anyone still have another useful tip that doesn't include what I have already done, it would be great. So far I have:

Tried (re)installing drivers - Nothing changed
Tried connecting the storage devices in other ports - Nothing changed
Tried updating the bios - Nothing changed
Tried to connect my usb devices via an external hub into windows - Nothing changed
Formating the drive - This is not really an option. I have tested the usb sticks on several computers and they are working fine. In any case my pc wouldn't let me format the sticks or external hds because windows can't see those storage devices. This 100% an issue with the mobo, because as I've said before the PC will not even start if I have any storage devices connected to the pc. I even tested opening the bios and connecting the usb stick and the pc freezes and refuses any command untill I remove the stick.
Tried to assign a letter to the drive in disk management - Windows can't see the storage devices as disks. For example: I tried connecting my wd passaport external HD. On any computer with working usbs windows usually shows in my computer a usb mass storage device and a virtual dvd device. The storage device is the actual HD and the virtual dvd contains relevant software and drives. My PC can only see the virtual dvd and even so I cannot open that device in my computer. When I open disk manager, windows doesn't seem to know what to do with that device. Let me ilustrate with some screenshots (the windows interface is in portuguese but I'll do my best to translate any relevant information):


This is what My Computer sees:

C: being my hard drive, D: my dvd drive and E: is the "virtual dvd drive" of the wd passport. If I try to open the E: drive the PC will load for ages and eventually display "no device found, please insert disk in the E: drive

This is what device manager sees (also displaying hidden devices):

You can see that all the drivers are correctly installed with no exclamation marks. It even shows that it can kinda see that a USB mass storage device is connected to the pc and all the relevant drivers for the wd passaport are also being recognized.

This is what devices and printers sections sees:

Same as device manager.

I cannot get a screenshot from the disk manager window because I have recently formated my PC and for some reason disk manager freezes when I connect my wd passaport. Before formating the device manager could see the "virtual dvd" but could not see the size of it and it would freeze if I tried to do anything with it.

Bear in mind that this is pretty much a fresh instalation of windows and no matter how many times I format this hd the problem persists. I am pretty confident it is mobo related and windows 10 and my drivers are not at fault. I've read countless other forum posts about this mobo and similar issues including how the gigabyte mobos appear to be very stubborn when you want to boot from usb. Right now if I need to reinstall windows I can use WIndows 10 recovery tool but it sucks that I cannot access storage devices. Having to use cloud services as a middle man when I want to transfer a file from my PC to my cellphone is just a hassle and I cannot afford a new mobo right now.

Thank you for your time.