Blue screen when USB modem disconnected

[aharrisreid]

I have a USB ISDN modem (Hayes Accura), which I want to use with my laptop pc. Whenever I unplug the modem from the pc I get the famous blue screen, and I have to reboot the pc!

I have downloaded the latest driver from Hayes, but it makes no difference.
I am using XP pro SP1. Could this be an XP problem?

Any help would be appreciated.
Alan

 

[bcastner]

Is this true even after clicking the safe removal icon in the notification tray and clicking to prepare the device for safe removal?

 

[aharrisreid]

bcastner, thanks for the reply.

>>Is this true even after clicking the safe removal icon in the notification tray and clicking to prepare the device for safe removal?<<

Tried that, but I get the message &quot;Cannot remove device because a program is using it&quot;, but when I look at the task manager I cannot see anything that could possibly be using the modem. I guess I'll have to delete the applications one-by-one and see if that makes a difference.

I thought the whole idea of USB was that devices could be plugged in and out at will (especially on a laptop), without having to 'safely remove' the device. Am I being too naive, or is this an XP thing?

Many thanks,
Alan

 

[bcastner]

The device will not be damaged by the removal.

Under XP it will autorecognized the device when inserted. The removal properties of the device are determined by the hardware USB interface of the device and its device drivers. XP is fairly fussy about what is a compliant USB device, and its rules are fairly strict.

It sometimes helps after the installation of SP1 to remove all connected USB devices, and uninstall the USB root devices under Device Manager. Reboot the machine and XP will find and restore the root devices, this time using the newer drivers from SP1. In your case it may profit you to uninstall the Hayes device as part of this process, remove it from the machine, let XP rebuild the USB controller and hub services, and then insert the board and let it re-install the modem as a new device.

But a visit to the Hayes Web site for a newer driver search would be a good idea.

 

[rblue]

Also check with the device manufacturer to see if there are updated drivers for the device.

Depending on who wrote the device driver, the OS will respond in different ways. What is the bluescreen message when you do this?

&quot;Surprise&quot; removal of a USB device should result in the device driver silently unloading, or at worst, the OS complaining that you rudely unplugged the device.

Worst case, the device driver issues an illegal interrupt and causes a bugcheck, which is what I suspect is happening in your case.