Posts Tagged ‘device’
“No space left on device” error on empty drives
It may occur that when you try to copy files from your hard disk to an external device such as an external HDD or a USB key, you get an error stating that there was no free space left on your device although you just erased everything from it to make some. This is most likely due to limitations of the file system your drive uses – newer drives might already use the NTFS file system while older will still use FAT32 or even FAT16.
The thing is that FAT32 formatted drives only support files up to a maximum size of 4GB – for example if you try to put an image file of 6 GB onto an external, FAT32 formatted hard drive of 320 GB with 100 GB of those still free and not in use, the copying will fail. To change this, you have to format the target drive to the NTFS file system.
Formatting will erase all data on a drive, so backup everything you have on it beforehand. Afterwards, right-click the drive in your file browser and choose Format….
On the appearing window, there will likely be an FAT file system on the File System drop-down menu (if it already says NTFS there, this guide won’t solve your problems). Before you change anything, double-check that you picked the right drive. Then change the file system to NTFS and click Start.
Remove Driver Filters to Resolve Device Manager Errors on Windows 7
Sometimes the situation might come up where a device that was working flawlessly before will stop doing so, even if you try everything – replugging it, reinstalling its drivers, rebooting the computer – but nothing will help.
A possible cause for this is a driver filter that was either installed by any third party software or simply was corrupted. These can be part of any hardware driver and can intercept requests between software and driver (UpperFilter) or between hardware and driver (LowerFilter). Furthermore, there are two types of filter for each relation – device filters and class filters, where device filters work only for specific devices and class filters work for every device of a specific type, for example every bluetooth radio or every USB device attached to your computer. Those class drivers are the ones that usually cause the issues (if it is a filter issue) because on the software’s side, it makes more sense to address those to alter specific behaviours.
If you experience such an issue (which is commonly recognized by the Device Manager errors 19, 31, 32, 37, 39 and 41) it is possible to delete class filters in the registry. Before you make any changes there, it is highly recommendable to back it up. To do so, enter the registry by entering regedit into a Run… prompt and on the left pane, right-click the topmost key (Computer). Click Export and save the file to any location. The file you just created is a .reg file and can be imported into the registry again by simply double-clicking it.
To find the correct filters in the registry, navigate to the Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class key. This will have many subkeys all named like this: {36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}. These represent the different classes of hardware, you can sport their type by the (Default) or Class values. The one above is for all USB devices:
Along with the other values, those keys contain the class filters if any are present. They are named UpperFilters and LowerFilters. If you have backed up your registry, look for the device giving you headaches and remove the class filters by right-clicking and deleting them.
This guide is only a solution to a possible source of errors and does not cover the whole range – if the problem persists, the source most likely lies somewhere else.
Uninstall USB Drivers on Windows 7
In the time you used your current Windows 7 system you undoubtly have plugged in a lot of different USB devices into your computer, most of them never to be used on it again. You will have notices that for every different device, Windows comes up with a message telling you that it automatically installs all drivers needed to use it.
That is perfectly alright, but what if you won’t use the device ever again? The drivers will remain on your hard disk in case you still need it. This is not optimal for two reasons – first: in no time, you will have a massive amount of drivers for different USB devices installed; second: drivers may be out of date the time you use your device again, even if you use it frequently.
Therefore, there is an option to uninstall or update your USB device drivers manually. Open a command prompt by searching for cmd and enter:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
This will set an environmental variable which can also be seen in Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables…. Afterwards, enter
devmgmt.msc
to open the device manager. This can also be done by right clicking Computer and choosing Manage, the device manager will be in the left column.
In the device manager menu, click View and enable Show hidden devices. If you now expand Universal Serial Bus controllers (USB) you will most likely have a bunch of transparent entries, which are all non present and/or hidden devices.
By right-clicking them, you can remove or upgrade their drivers if you need to. This can also be done will any other driver on the device manager and is rather useful for corrupted drivers, is to be handled with care however. If you don’t precisely know if you just selected a system component for uninstallment, better don’t do it.