semaphore timeout error while accessing hard drives

[lordsmurf]

Alright, this is not a question, this is a story. I hope it'll help others out there, should the need arise.

What the hell am I talking about, you ask? With my new upgrade to WINDOWS XP PRO, I suddenly lost access to the Ultra ATA drives on my system. The disks would not read. And beyond that, it gave an error on par with a MS blue screen of death (BSOD): Semaphore Timeout Error

Now, this may seem simple (after you hear the fix), but it wasn't a quick trip for me. In fact, I've got a couple of projects on the drives in question. I felt a sickening sensation coming over me after a few hours, and I was probably about to vomit and/or cry or both.

This is the config:
Motherboard Primary IDE0 = HD 120GB WD (NTFS)
Motherboard Primary IDE1 = HD 100GB WD (FAT32)
Motherboard Slave IDE2 = DVD-R Pioneer
Motherboard Slave IDE3 = DVD-ROM LG
Promise TX2/100 Ultra ATA Primary IDE4 = HD 200GB WD (FAT32)
Promise TX2/100 Ultra ATA Primary IDE5 = CD-RW LiteOn
Promise TX2/100 Ultra ATA Slave IDE6 = HD 180GB WD (FAT32)
Promise TX2/100 Ultra ATA Slave IDE7 = Empty

Whenever I tried to read files, it would hang. The data (FAT32) was corrupted when it did read. Altering the index service did nothing (was not on anyway). I thought the drive was bad, as other posts on other sites insisted. But they JUST WORKED on WinME before the upgrade, so I know it was something else.

Then I saw the CD-RW drive froze the PC. Common thread: all Ultra ATA devices not working good. Idea? Bad XP drivers. Corrupted, probably reinstall.

The drivers that auto-installed with Windows XP did not work. The drivers that installed from Promise Tech did not work. The drivers that came on a disc with the card did not work.

The key? After reading about dozens and dozens of people in the same boat as me, none of whom had found the solution, I got lucky. Or maybe a prayer was answered? I stumbled across a not-very-convenient Western Digital driver page. So I downloaded them.

Stupid XP insisted the WD drivers were bad, wrong ones, warnings against doing it. I said "screw it" and did it anyway, cut through all the warnings and what-not. Guess what? It works now. The WESTERN DIGITAL TX2 XP drivers fixed it. Good as gold.

So damned simple, yet so many hours of grief. And out of all the posts I read from myriad user boards, nobody ever posted a fix. This is the fix for me. If you're reading this, and you're having problems, I hope it's the fix for you too.

[rallynavvie]

Microsoft's whole driver signing deal is silly. They can't even keep up with all the drivers that hit the market so there are lots out there that are perfectly safe yet not "MS signed drivers". What the hell OS do they think the manufacturer's are testing their drivers on?

[The village idiot]

Microsoft's whole driver signing deal is silly. They can't even keep up with all the drivers that hit the market so there are lots out there that are perfectly safe yet not "MS signed drivers". What the hell OS do they think the manufacturer's are testing their drivers on?

It cost money to have your drivers "signed" as working with windoze. Who in their right mind would want to pay MS any more money to get a driver signed. The SDKs the MS sells is very expensive to begin with, and then to ask for more? F' that! That's why you might be seeing more and more drivers that are not signed, maybe people are giving up. There is a thread somewhere on the puremotion.com forums that mentioned this as the reason their drivers were not signed.