Anyone else having some issues appearing during a 2004 clean install

sportsfan148 · 09 Nov 2020

Hi All, Several days ago I clean installed version 2004 Build 19041.450. Ive done loads of clean installs with various versions over the years with no errors at all shown in the Reliability History. This time there were some differences (highlighted in Red for easy reference as I know its a long post) so Im posting to see if others are seeing the same or similar. Reliability Monitor had a couple of livekernelevent hardware errors that I was unable to pinpoint other than they appeared between the PC rebooting after the Windows files were installed by Windows setup and the OOBE beginning at the Select your Region screen.
After a Clean install-I always leave the USB drive inserted until installation has completed and Im back at the windows desktop. Then from taskbar I safely remove hardware and remove the USB. On this occasion Safely Remove Hardware wasnt available. I rebooted-and still not available. It also showed In Device Manager Unknown USB Device and Port Reset failed. So I shut down the PC and was going to remove the flash drive then but instead I just thought id try powering again up to see if that would Reset the Port and sure enough it did. Safely remove hardware reappeared so at that point I safely removed the flash drive. Im wondering if that was something to do with the Port Reset failure. Any thoughts on this?
Also for the first time in years I had a couple of yellow exclamations which included SM Bus controller and an unknown device which I knew would get sorted out when I installed the Intel Chipset drivers...its something I havent had to do before though after a Windows 10 clean installation. Usually during setup Windows 10 installs chipset drivers itself but this time that didnt happen either which may have caused this?
Another quirk not seen in years was the red cross on the speaker icon on the taskbar meaning that sound wasnt working. The first PC restart sorted that one out.
For several years now with Windows 10 Ive got used to Device Manager being totally free of any exclamation marks after a clean installation so I thought they were a thing from the past. Anyone else experiencing any of this?
EDIT-----I tried clean installing again to see what would happen. I still got the hardware errors appearing at exactly the same time. This time though Windows 10 installed chipset drivers as it always has in the past, so there were no exclamation marks in Device Manager. The Safely Remove Hardware Taskbar choice was missing again so I couldnt immediately remove the installation USB. This time there wasnt any problem with the red cross on the taskbar speaker icon though.
However an additional oddity this time was when I opened File Explorer the opening screen had the Navigation Pane disabled??
I have clean installed 1909 again to see if I have a hardware issue but as expected there were no errors whatsoever this time. I dont know what to do now..should I skip the 2004 clean installation altogether and instead create installation media for a 20H2 clean install with the MCT? It has been offered in Windows Updates for my PC. I dont usually install new feature updates though until a few months after their release. As Im not used to seeing any errors after clean installs its made me a bit uneasy. Are these issues nothing to be concerned about? Id appreciate others opinions?

ignatzatsonic · 09 Nov 2020

My memory has faded, but I recall reading something about Safely Remove Hardware issues within the last 2 or 3 weeks.

I upgraded to 2004 myself a couple of weeks ago.......not clean install, and have noticed that I don't see that Safely Remove Hardware notice either. Don't think I see the "eject" choice in File Explorer either. I decided I would just wait a minute or so before pulling out a USB drive afterI was reasonably sure it had quit writing. I wish I could recall further detail, but I decided it wasn't a critical issue.

I did notice some minor performance improvement in USB drive performance if I used chipset drivers from my motherboard manufacturer, even though the newest one is 4 or 5 years old.

sportsfan148 · 09 Nov 2020

ignatzatsonic said:

My memory has faded, but I recall reading something about Safely Remove Hardware issues within the last 2 or 3 weeks.

I upgraded to 2004 myself a couple of weeks ago.......not clean install, and have noticed that I don't see that Safely Remove Hardware notice either. Don't think I see the "eject" choice in File Explorer either. I decided I would just wait a minute or so before pulling out a USB drive afterI was reasonably sure it had quit writing. I wish I could recall further detail, but I decided it wasn't a critical issue.

I did notice some minor performance improvement in USB drive performance if I used chipset drivers from my motherboard manufacturer, even though the newest one is 4 or 5 years old.

Yeah.. Safely remove hardware was missing and when I looked In File Explorer to see if there was an Eject option the flash drive wasnt listed at all ..until I shut down the PC and powered back up which made it appear in file explorer and the Safely Remove Hardware option was available again. When checking immediately after a clean installation, Ive had years of Windows 10 clean installs with no Reliability History errors whatsoever. Have I just been lucky in the past?... is it normal to have some errors that can appear such as the hardware errors I had and can they be safely ignored if everything seems to be working fine?

Ztruker · 09 Nov 2020

No need to use the Safely Remove Hardware icon in Windows 10 any more: Windows 10 now lets you pull out USB drives without ‘safely removing’ them

We all know that one person who annoyingly reminds you to use “Safely Remove Hardware” before pulling the USB drive out of the slot. They shouldn’t bother you anymore. As Betanews first noted, Microsoft has introduced a new policy that allows you to remove the device without using the Safely Remove Hardware process – as long as you’re not writing data to it.
To be sure, you could actually do this even back when Windows 7 was around – but the OS was set to enable ‘Better performance’ by default for USB drives, instead of ‘Quick removal.’ So you couldn’t just yank out your hardware while it was plugged in; you’d have to manually change this USB management setting before doing so.
Where do we go from here?

The new policy, which was part of the October 2018 update (Windows 10 version 1809), which is now rolling out to all users. Here’s what Microsoft says on its blog:

This policy manages storage operations in a manner that keeps the device ready to remove at any time. You can remove the device without using the Safely Remove Hardware process. However, to do this, Windows cannot cache disk write operations. This may degrade system performance.

OldNavyGuy · 09 Nov 2020

Ztruker said:

No need to use the Safely Remove Hardware icon in Windows 10 any more: Windows 10 now lets you pull out USB drives without ‘safely removing’ them

Not exactly.

The default is Quick removal.

However...if the Removal Policy has been set to Better performance, you still need to Safely Remove Hardware.