Front USB Recognition Issue

I have this seemingly random, recurring issue with the front two USB ports on my PC. I have a pair of externally powered Seagate 500GB Freeagent HDDs of different vintages that I use for system images and they plug into one of the two front USB ports on the tower. It seems that after a CU update, the system will not recognize the front two ports when either of these drives are plugged in. The four rear USB ports work fine and have devices permanently connected to them (keyboard, mouse, external HDD, & printer). The system has these two 3.0 ports configured as drives H & G. The ports don't show up in Device Manager or Devices & Printers in the Control Panel pages until they are recognized. I have tried physically connecting the drives under power and then doing a restart or boot up and the two ports will not be recognized. I have disconnected and reconnected the drives with different USB cables to no avail. Eventually, the drives will be recognized and shown, but I'm not sure what triggers the event. It usually happens when I'm putzing around in the system trying to see the drives, but I have not figured out what triggers the recognition. I have not had the issue (that I can recall) with flash drives. Once the USB ports have been "activated" with a HDD, the problem disappears until the next CU update. Since I normally don't use these two HDDs until right before I do a WU, I don't see the problem right away. I'm guessing the issue is with my tower hardware as all of the drivers are up to date by W10. Is there a way I can manually trigger the recognition of the drives?

Hi. jamis. A few questions. Do USB flash drives experience the same issue in these ports? Do you use the “Eject this drive” procedure?

I haven't noticed the problem with flash drives, I rarely use them. The next time this issue surfaces, I'll try a flash drive in the port to see. Yes, I do use the "eject" option.

A sample of what one might see in Device Manager, USB section:

In addition to the back panel ports and the front panel ports I have added a PCIe-X1 card to give more USB 3 ports. My Desktop has 2 SS/USB3 ports on the front plus SS/USB3 and USB2 ports on the rear. The front ports usually have a cable to the motherboard along with the speaker/headset and microphone ports, power switch, sometimes an SD/SDHC card reader slot. The added-in USB card didn't need installing of drivers, didn't even come with any, Windows took care of that after install and starting up the computer.

jamis said:

It seems that after a CU update, the system will not recognize the front two ports when either of these drives are plugged in. The four rear USB ports work fine and have devices permanently connected to them

You might look to your PC vendor or motherboard manufacture to see if there are any new chipset drivers for your board/PC.

That said, you issue is rather strange in that only the front ports aren't working. That either sounds like the front ports are damaged, the cable connecting the front ports came loose, or the connection for those front ports are on a different USB chipset. I say that because your indicate the rear ports still work.

That said, check cable, check for new drivers, check the front ports aren't damaged themselves. Also check the devices themselves are actually working.

BTW, not matter the Windows update my front USB ports still work. Currently running the Window 10 21H1 build. System specs posted.

Drivers are all current according to Windows. The ports test OK, and wiggling the USB plugs in them causes no issues. I am going to run a system image save tonight and then un-pause WU to get whatever updates are in the pipe. After a shut down and re-boot, I'll see if the problem persists with a flash drive and one of the HDDs. I think it's something to do with updates as the pause function also gets hosed sometimes also after WU.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, I didn't get to the system image save as Macrium Reflect couldn't see the drive even though File Explorer could. Scan Disk said the drive was damaged which was strange since the last use was a system image save after the FU to 20H2. I did a hard format of the drive overnight and now both of the USB drives are quickly recognized when you plug them into either front port. I guess something caused the front port support to be messed up when the damaged drive was first plugged into them and re-booting the system didn't reset things. Tonight is a scheduled full system AV scan (11 hrs.) so I won't do the system image save until a day or so. I'll update this thread afterwards.

- - - Updated - - -

I have tested the connection of USB devices to the front ports on this unit multiple times and while they work as they should now, it can take up to a couple of minutes for File Explorer to recognize them. Device Manager and Devices & Printer displays show them almost immediately, but FE won't for some time. A Macrium Reflect system image is running to one of the Seagate Freeagent HDDs as I type this, so in a couple of hours I'll be in a position to do the FU to 21H1, which is what started all of this.

Check if your Front USBs is detected by BIOS.
Also, there was a setting that you can enable Front and Back USB. Check if that's all enabled.

SIW2 said:

Are you the same Kevin Ismael that made the patch loader? It is very useful.

What?

The discussion remind me of a disaster to my internal HDD last month.
I had an old 2-TB-Seagate Barracuda as backups of family videos and pictures dated since 2015. Mounted along with other HDD and system SSD. Didn't upload it to the cloud storage as too large in amount. Last month I did routine physical clean up using a mini vac cleaner. I remember that I unintentionally bumped the vac tip at one of HDD cover. When done with it, I turned the PC on, it notif me that one of the HDD unrecognized and needs format. Just jumped to disk management I saw the SSD (system) was OK. 1 TB Data HDD was OK, the new 3 TB HDD was also fine. And the 2 TB seen as unformatted.
I did all effort to revive it with Easeus but failed. Even repartitioned it. After several attempts it even lost. Only 4 mb HDD's board memory was readable. Tried swapping the HDD board with few similar type, nothing happened. A week earlier I bought a new 3 TB Seagate and planned to move the files. But I guess time beat me. Who knows, an old HDD was instantly broken just by little bump to its cover. Saw its disk plates still smoth. I suspect the head just came to its end. Unable to read anymore. the ticking sound now clearly heard when connected.
Now I lost my 15-year-family archives. 😢

kevin.