C est magique: allez ici, il y a toutes lesinstructions
http://daltrey.org/linux/cypress.html
have made the software available here, along with an explanation of how to bring a Cypress at2lp rc42 device back to life. I did not write the software and you are presently reading absolutely everything I know about this Cypress problem. I found the software in a German language tech forum. I copied the software here, as I had difficulty joining the tech forum and downloading the software. I also provided some instructions in English.
The software is downloaded about 1000 times per month. The software worked for my external drive box. I have no idea whether it will work for yours.
At first, most of the emails I received said, "thanks, it worked." Now most of my emails are saying, "help, it didn't work." But, people who download the software usually do not write me at all, so I can't say how many find success.
Perhaps Cypress has changed the chip and the software, so it may be that newer cypress-based external boxes can't be re-programmed by this software.
The Software*:
*note: below I also list some other solutions offered by readers that may help if you do not understand my explanation that follows!
Warning!! added 12/15/2006: There are about 1,000 downloads of this software each month and now after some months I have received the first disappointing email, from someone who says that after the program stated "successful", his computer no longer even recognized the external box at all. Similarly, not recognized on a second computer at all. You can read my reply and the original email here, so you can decide whether you wish to try this software or not! And also see this note...
(For the following, it is probable that you need to be in an adminstrator account.)
Step 1 -- download either DBFlash.exe or dbflash.rar. These are both the same program, one is self-extracting and the other is a RAR compressed file containing DBFlash.exe. Now that you have these files, run your virus scanner on them, just in case!
* if you don't have a RAR extraction tool and want to use the rar file for some reason, go get either 7-zip or NewzToolz. I recommend 7-zip, 'cause although they are both free, NewzToolz seems to be selling something and wants to connect to the internet, etc. (This makes me nervous.)
You can also download dbflash.pdf if you want some reference material that is written in German. You only need this one if you want to read the pictures like I did or you want to translate it or you actually would rather be reading German right now anyway.
* here is the link from which I obtained the software: http://www.winhelpline.info/... (message # 62)
* and here's the link that sent me there, in case you are a real history buff: http://www.everythingusb.com/...
* See (way) below for some comments about a Western Digital drive, which required a jumper reset. This may be an issue for your drive as well.
Step 2 -- unrar dbflash.rar somewhere you will be able to find it later. I put mine in c:\temp\dbflash and therefore I later found myself looking for stuff in c:\temp\dbflash\PH-1003 EE SW. If you select the default choice, you will probably end up with it in c:\PH-1003 EE SW, but I personally think it is a bad choice to put unnecessary directories in the root and I like to remind myself that it is, after all, "temporary" and can be trashed later.
8/17/06 update -- Obviously, I have no idea what I actually did. As the result of a reader indicating she had problems downloading "dbflash.rar" -- it downloaded as an html file -- I went back over the actual steps. Umm, well, actually dbflash.rar unpacks to "DBFlash.exe", which is itself a zip file, which offers to unzip at "c:\" and this will result in "c:\PH-1003 EE SW." So, if you add "temp\dbflash\" to the offered "c:\", you will get the "c:\temp\dbflash\PH-1003 EE SW" directory I used.
I can't explain the "html" problem. FYI, I use Mozilla Firefox -- and you should too -- so a right click and a "save link as" should do the trick for you. MSIE will probably ask if you want to open or save the EXE file and I don't know what happens with the RAR file. (In Firefox, if you merely click on the rar file, you will probably get a screen full of gibberish, that is what happens to me.)
Step 3 -- uninstall "cypress at2lp rc42"
You are probably wondering why you have to uninstall hardware that didn't install and isn't working, which is the whole reason you are reading this page.
Windows xp has probably tried to "install new hardware" -- which is why you know you are looking for the holy grail of "cypress at2lp rc42 answers" in the first place. You have probably told it to go search for the driver & all that -- and in the end, windows xp has told you that it could not find an appropriate driver so the install has failed.
This does not mean, however, that "cypress at2lp rc42" has gone "uninstalled." No, windows xp has installed "it" even though there is no it there. So, as a first step, you have to get rid of "it". Or, I suppose you could "install new driver," but let's just get rid of "it".
Right click on "my computer". Find properties and then go to device manager. In all likelihood, the Cypress hardware has a big yellow question mark next to it to indicate it is not working. Right click on it and tell it to uninstall. Then follow the prompts to get rid of the thing. (If you can't find it, it is probably under USB devices, or if you can't find it, then maybe it did not install and you can ignore this step.)
If I am confusing you, you can perhaps be less, or maybe more, confused by looking at the German pdf file. It has pictures of the relevant screenshots, which this page does not, so that may be useful to you.
Step 4 -- install new hardware.
(8-20-07 Special note -- some users will find that the install stops at this step because you will be informed, "driver does not contain information for your device. Readers have sent me two potential solutions to this problem, which are posted with links from their specific hardware in the wiki. Check these out, the are under "Eminent" and "Targa". The Eminent solution is the more drastic one, so I recommend the "Targa" solution first.)
There are various ways you can trigger "install new hardware" which I will not go into here, because you of course already know them. But, as we both know, one way is to restart the computer with the external drive turned on and so windows xp will try to install it during the boot process.
Now, when the "install new hardware" prompts start showing up, you don't want windows xp to search the internet, and you don't want to have it search for a driver, you want to manually tell it where to find the driver. And when the option arrives, you "have disk". Then, browse to the location where you extracted that rar file, which is something like c:\temp\dbflash\PH-1003 EE SW or c:\PH-1003 EE SW
You will only find one "hardware" choice, so select it and install away.
(rev. 2/7/07 -- I think it might be best to shutdown & restart computer after installing the driver and before taking the following steps. I did not do it that way, but it appears some people experience difficulty with the drive not being "found" by primer.exe or the computer.
Another option may be to simply unplug and replug the usb cable as "jim" notes he did (below), but generally speaking, unplugging an active USB device without first stopping it is not a good idea.)
Now [when you have restarted the computer] you can open an explorer window and browse to the same folder, eg. c:\temp\dbflash\PH-1003 EE SW and run "primer.exe". This may be a problem if you use "windows xp for dummies," which of course is the way XP comes. You will probably need to be in an administrator account, btw. If you don't know what I am talking about and cannot find a file to execute called "primer.exe", then I recommend you speak to your cousin or whomever it is that helps you out when your computer has issues.
If you are like me and just click on exe files you sort of suspect are there to solve the problem, then (a) you are a dangerous risk-taker and I have no sympathy for you and (b) primer.exe is already running and by the time you <tab><alt> to see if anything has happened, it will be saying "SUCCESSFUL" and you will have this sense that it is almost time to think life is worth living again. But the main thing is that primer.exe tells you to "plug in the device" and is "waiting" (but will wait until hell freezes over unless you have actually installed the cypress at2lp rc42 driver).
For those of you who actually read the help notes (such as these) before clicking aimlessly on exe files, then primer.exe should instruct you to plug in the device (but it's already plugged in), then very quickly notice it is there, tell you it is updating the software (I forget what the actual prompt is) and then say "SUCCESSFUL.")
Step 5 -- ???
I do not actually know what Step 6 is, since in my euphoria at the words "successful" I forgot precisely what I had to do, if anything. Since my life is unnecessarily complicated, I did not actually do all of this on the computer to which my external drive is supposed to be attached. I did it on a different one, and so I then reconnected my external drive to the correct computer and maybe I rebooted it or maybe I didn't.
In any event it worked fine and probably so will yours if you haven't taken any of those dumb suggestions like "reformat the drive" or "send it back to the manufacturer."
Various Notes:
P.S. Late Breaking News on Step 5! (From Reader/Fellow Sufferer Robert Kommeren):
"Step 6 [now 5]
After the flashing of the new firmware nothing really happens. Don't cry, hell didn't freeze over ;)
Shutdown your computer (wait a couple of sec's (30 or so))
Shutdown the external drive (Same goes here, wait a little)
Than start the computer, and wait with the drive ((let it cool ;) , so hell did freeze over??!).
When your computer started up in to windows start the external drive.
And there you have it..... a new external drive is found and guess what ;)
Is this the ultimate way to do this? NO, but this is how i did it and it worked.
Since this is the only time i had to do this, i havent had the chance to test more, but it DID work!
So mister Daltrey, THANK YOU!
In my case i had data from four customers in truecrypted vaults (data recovery and backups for reinstalls). So he made my day, week, month, etc ;)
Well thats it. Same as a bios flash i think."
Daltrey replies -- and thank you to Robert and all those who have written saying this information has helped. This is my most visited web page -- I guess we are talking 1,000s of Cypress EPROM failures per month -- & I am glad to be able to provide some small service back to the internet community which has helped me so often in the past.
Late breaking news, 8/23/06 -- Jan writes me from Holland that he reads German and my link to winhelpline is "incorrect." (I don't know what to say ... I got the files you will find on this website from message #62 above, and it has worked for me and several readers who have sent a note of thanks ...)
He gives me the following link instead.
http://www.winhelpline.info/...
message number 148.
This does have "primer.zip" which may or may not be the same file(s) I offer here.
Jan says that a lot of people who use the link to message #62 are unsuccessful. (I suppose they may be having the same problem I originally had in downloading the files, which is why I ultimately provided them here.)
It wasn't clear to me whether Jan was successful with "primer.zip" from message number 148 or not. His drive is a WD 25 JB Caviar SE, maybe "primer.zip" has a driver for a different set of Cypress chips.
Further note: not every Cypress EPROM problem can be corrected with the software from this site. One reader wrote to tell me that the "fix" you find here did not work for her Seagate external drive, but that she was successful in removing her hard drive from the external case and installing it in her computer. (Seagate couldn't help, but would have been happy to replace the drive -- and then retrieve the data from the old drive for the mere cost of $700!)
Maybe Jan's drive uses a different Cypress chip and "primer.zip" is not the same software as what I've posted here. So, perhaps you have a second option if the "fix" I provide won't work. (BTW, if someone determines that "primer.zip" is helpful for a different set of Cypress chips, let me know and I can put that zip file here as well. -- Looking at the file, it is a "generic" Cypress USB driver, referencing " CY4651B_C. Oh, rats, now I have to go look and see what the driver # is in the file I have posted, to see if it is different... Well, a different day for that!)
Even later-breaking news 8/23/06 -- Jan writes back with more info for you, having SUCCESSFULLY recovered his drive. His drive required a manual "reset" by jumper. Prior to the manual reset, the Windows XP device manager was reporting "Unknown USB device". Jan learned from the German article to "bridge pins 1 and 3" on the 40 pin connector in order to cause a reset. If I understand his procedure correctly, disconnect the drive. You then put a jumper on pins 1 and 3, plug in the USB cable to the computer (or plug directly) and the computer will now recognize a new "Cypress AT 2lp". You then have to unplug the drive and REMOVE the jumper from pins 1 - 3. Now you reconnect the drive to the computer and follow the procedures found on this page. (I'm guessing that you probably have to plug the drive in with the 1-3 jumper connected at least temporarily, to get a power supply for the "reset". But who knows? Maybe just shorting pins 1 and 3 momentarily will trigger the reset, even without plugging the drive into the computer. However, I sure don't recommend playing with the pins while the drive is plugged in to the computer or any power source!)
Need I actually say this? Like each of us that has been "successful", Jan was ecstatic to discover his "K-Drive" had returned to life ... If you've been there, you know the feeling. If you are here reading this page in the "hope" you have found a solution, then you for sure know what it feels like when you think all your data has fallen into the abyss. We hope you will get lucky and join us on the other side of it.
While we are on the subject of Western Digital Caviar drives, I have had two of them and both were very early failures when compared to all the other drives I have had that seem to ... well, not fail. One I bought as a "bare drive" and installed in an older desktop. It failed rather quickly -- and I had to go back to using the original, much older, much smaller drive that came with the computer.
The second one came in an external box as a packaged external drive unit from Buslink. I always had problems with the unit, since the heads would sound like they were "parking" constantly. Neither the firewire nor USB2 links would reliably connect. I finally took the box apart and tried to install the drive as an internal drive in desktop -- at that point I began to get progressively worse sector failures -- which was the problem I had when the other Western Digital drive failed.
When I discussed this with a client who builds/installs computers for his customers, he said he avoided the Western Digital drives because of failure problems..
Your mileage may vary, but all I will tell you is that I will not be purchasing any more Western Digital products.
Many people probably purchased the box and device inside as a "package", but I bought my box and the hard drive inside separately. (I previously had a completely unmitigated DISASTER with a similar BUSLINK setup that came with a Western Digital hard drive. Both the drive AND the box were worthless, so I decided the next time out I would assemble my own. Which, BTW, has worked extremely well and very quietly except for the teeny, tiny, life-altering, disasterous, disaster we are discussing here, consisting of complete failure of the external box.)
Cypress apparently does not sell end-user devices, so they do not put "support links" on their website. You are supposed to get your support from the vendor, who probably does not actually know how to solve the problem or is not sufficiently interested in your inconsequential needs to provide support, or whatever. (In my case, I can't remember who the vendor is and the external device box doesn't actually say.)
Cypress can be located at cypress.com. They apparently only sell the chips -- and they provide a bunch of software to the manufacturers who then make devices based on the cypress chips. I didn't find anything useable by me here, but if you are a real computer engineering techie, you might find something useful.
Another hint concerning external boxes that is somewhat unrelated to this article -- but I pass it along. Some external hard drive users have reported that while their computers were recognizing the external USB device, they were not recognizing the actual hard drive inside the box. They removed the box-to-drive connector and reinstalled it. Apparently in those instances there was some corrosion on the pins, preventing the drive from talking to the USB box.
More solutions:
From Julie, in UK:
Thank you for your page on 'Cypress at2lp rc42'... it helped me out so much :o)
I now have my 'Freecom Classic SL Hard Drive' working again :o)
I read and read your page but sadly it still didn't work, then I found a post on this forum ---> http://www.everythingusb.com/...
where, along with links to your page, it had these instructions...
------------------
*yeah just go and download that file dbflash.exe
*extract it somewhere on your local disk.
*go to device manager and find that darn cypress AT2LP
*reinstall driver (you don't want to have it search for a driver, you want to manually tell it where to find the driver. And when the option arrives, you "have disk". Then, browse to the location where you extracted that rar file, which is something like c:\temp\dbflash\PH-1003 EE SW or c:\PH-1003 EE SW)
*now when you have installed that disconnect your HD from you computer.
*run primer.exe from c:\PH-1003 EE SW) or wherever it is.
*connect your HD to the computer now.
*in couple of seconds you have to see green message "successful"
*disconnect your HD from power source and USB keep it for a few second and connect everything back again!
----------------
and this from another reader:
Thank you so much for your Cypress Hell documentary! Your sincere efforts to just want to help are refreshing and have revitalized my faith in mankind that spyware programmers had previously taken away.
I just want to add that I messed up part of the process (I think instead of selecting 'all drivers' from the top of the list, I picked something (-obviously not knowing what I was doing and not reading very well to boot) but I ended up with a similar situation to the "Warning!!" added 12/15/06 where it no longer recognized the external box at all!
Feeling despondent, stupid and highly unlucky I did the only thing I know how to do and that was a system restore to the point before I tried to install the driver. Viola! I was back in Cypress hell which at that point actually felt pretty good! I was then able to try it again, this time correctly choosing 'all drivers' from the top of the list and successfully restoring my hard drive.
Thank you so much!
______________________
and this one:
hi Daltry,
thank you so much for this article at http://daltrey.org/linux/cypress.html
i have a classic sl hard drive from freecom which suddenly dissapeared with over 200 gigs of very important files, after trying various system restore points and re-installing windows xp i also asked for help at different forums and one of those were the freecom support site itself at http://www.freecom.com/default.asp
where after sending e-mails and trying to phone i was'nt getting any response until a guy by the name of 'The Techie from Sneckie' started to respond to my cry for help and was very helpful indeed,
he suggested changing the jumpers from master to slave which i tried but that did'nt work but then he suggested plan B and directed me to your site,
my experience differs slightly to yours so i thought you would like to hear it and maybe that can help others,
so i followed your instructions given on the site up to the point where you say 'click have disk and browse to the driver and install it'
this would not work, i was told that the driver was not for my hardware,
i tried a different approach telling it that i would pick my own device from a list, when the list came up i browsed down to where i found the word 'cypress' and clicked on it and then browsed to the folder with the driver and told it to install,
at this point windows warned me that if i installed this device my computer may stop working which is a bit frightening but i threw caution to the wind and installed it anyway,
then clicked on the 'primer.exe' as instructed but, this is where the thing supposed to say 'successful' and 'plug in the device but it will wait until hell freezes over'
well nothing happened with mine, the box was there with 'plug in your device' and 'successful' written but not lit up and my hard drive was nowhere to be found,
in a temper i yanked the usb cable out of the computer while still on and plugged it back in again and suddenly the 'successful' tab lit up!
But... still no hard drive showed anywhere, not even in device manager and i feared the worst,
i then turned the computer off and unplugged the h/d, plugged it back in and booted up and WHA-HEY the classic sl came out of its coma with my 200 gigs all intact.
i would also like to offer one more piece of advice i picked up along the way that One of the things that happens with having lots of external devices is XP gets confused by all the drive letters changing with removeables. Its a good idea to assign permanent letters to your various external items (like Q, Z, etc.) to eliminate that part of the problem. Hope this helps some people out there and once again many many thanks for your article,
all the best,
jim.
Another solution, this one from Niels in the Netherlands:
Step 4 - Install new hardware.
This one gave me a serious headache because Windows XP PRO simply refused to auto-install the driver when I selected c:\PH-1003 EE SW\Driver as the folder to look in. Also it didn't give me any options to manually select the driver and install it.
So after a moment of panic I came up with the following solution:
1. Go to control panel and select "Add Hardware". Note: this part can also be with the auto-install popup.
2. Now instead of selecting a folder in the "Have Disk" part, select the "Choose device from list" (or something like that) option.
3. Once you're there, select "Universal Serial Bus Controller" and THAN use the "Have Disk" option.
4. Go to c:\PH-1003 EE SW\Driver (or where ever you put it) and select "CyUSB" and click OK.
5. NOW it will show you the correct driver (which can be manually selected for install). Go ahead and install it (you'll get some warnings from Windows, but those can be ignored).
So that would be the way to manually install it when the auto-install function refuses to do it. Hope it saves someone some time, because it annoyed the hell out of me (knowing that there is a manual install function, but not being able to find it).
Disque dur externe usb non reconnu sous vista
