External Drive Accessible via USB Hub but not Directly

Question

I have an SSD + enclosure that I am using as an external drive. When I try to plug it in directly into my Surface Pro, I get E:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function.. However, when I plug a usb hub into the same port, and then plug the external drive into the hub, my computer recognizes it fine. Some more things I've tried:

1. uninstalled the device driver and restarted PC
2. uninstalled the usb port driver and restarted PC
3. rescan disks from disk management
4. run chkdsk E: /f /r /x, gives me Cannot open volume for direct access
5. changing the drive letter to P: (drive letter changed, still not accessible)

More details:

• accessible when plugged into my macbook pro
• accessible when plugged into my desktop PC
• the enclosure uses USB-C, my surface pro uses USB A
• I've used the SSD a couple times already in a different enclosure, and the SSD is already partitioned into an exFAT partition and a NTFS partition
• shows up fine in Device Manager as a disk drive, and correctly identifies the chipset
• in Disk Management, doesn't show up under "Volume" but still shows up as a disk (image below)
• doesn't show up in Diskpart command-line utility
• it shows up in file explorer as a generic "USB Drive" (note that it should actually show up as 2 drives since there are two partitions)
• this problem started while I was testing out 3 different enclosures. First one worked OK (but slow). Second one got really hot and caused the computer to freeze up, and on subsequent attempts to connect the drive, would go into a disconnect/reconnect loop. The third one is the one I'm currently trying to use, with issues described above. However I feel like the issue is not the third enclosure, since it's brand new and works fine on other computers

Update:

So some more mysterious behavior. Using my desktop PC, I deleted all partitions from the drive, and for extra measure, created a single new partition, formatted it, and then deleted it again. Then I plugged the drive back into my Surface, and I still got the same error, P:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function.! What's extra surprising is that it's still using the drive letter that I assigned to it before formatting it. I was expecting it to be treated as a new drive, but somehow my Surface Pro still "remembers" it. I have no idea how my Surface is identifying the drive and how it still is able to map that drive letter to the formatted drive.

Could it be that it's recognizing the enclosure itself as a disk??

Answer 1

I've had the same problem today, and no computer recognized the file system, even though the computer was showing there's a drive D with "incorrect function". I opened my enclosure and found that the NVME drive has pulled partially out of it's socket. After pushing it back in, the drive is back, including all the files I had on it. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Is the hub powered, and what USB version is the hub presenting? Could it be a USB 2.0 hub but the drive and port are USB 3.0 (SS port)? Maybe you need a USB 3.0 driver?

Just wild thoughts, let us know if they get you anywhere. I agree it sounds odd.

Answer 3

I have heard of this issue with some Surface Pro models. If I had to guess at a reason it might be that some very low power demand devices don't trigger a power draw from the usb controller. But it could be the cable doesn't match up well with the usb port, though this seems less likely with it working correctly on three other devices. Good luck!