USB external drive problems

[PeteW]

Hi, I have a problem with a USB mobile Hard Disk, it is formatted in FAT32.
I first got it a few months ago and it worked fine, I could copy large
amounts of data to and from the drive then all of a sudden I could not copy
anything over 10MB or so to the drive but I could copy from the drive no
problems at all.
I would get a 'delay write failed' or 'cannot find the specified file'
error. The USB drive would then disconnect.

After checking the event viewer>system I was getting an Event Id 51 error
saying the following 'An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk5\D
during a paging operation.'

At first I thought it was the usb drive itself. I have a friend with an
exact same model drive (we got them at the same time). His didn't work either
but they both worked fine on his machine. I then tried this on several USB
flash drives and again I could copy from but not to them.

After this I upgraded my Chipset drivers and everything was fine and it
worked without a problem, then less than a week later the problem resurfaced.
I have not been able to find a correct solution despite a lot of searching
and trying this and that.
All other USB devices work fine, printer, mouse, joystick and modem.

Needed Info-

WinXP Home Edition SP2
P4 3.4GHz
2GB RAM
Intel 925x Chipset Mainboard
Hitachi 75GB Hard Disk (30% free)
Freecom 30GB USB Mobile Hard Disk
Custom Size Paging file of 4092MB on Hard Disk
Total paging file size for all drives 2047MB
In Device Manager there are 4 USB Universal Host Controllers and 1 USB2
Enhanced Host Controller

Any help would be appreciated, Thank You

[William Anderson]

Hi there Pete,

I recently had this same problem happen on my SanDisk Cruzer Micro drive. I
hate to say it, but the drive may be bad.

What you want to do is try the same operation on another PC with your mobile
drive and see if the same thing happens. If it does, then it is most likely
the drive. If you can, please let me know the make and model of your drive
and I'd be more than happy to point you in the right direction for an RMA or
hardware support.

If the drive works on a different PC, then it could possibly be a driver
issue. Same thing, let me know what the make and model is, and I'll be happy
to post some steps on uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,

~Will

[PeteW]

Hi William

The drive is a Freecom Classic Mobile HD 2.5" 30GB. The drive does work
fine on other PC's I have tried it on a friends and one of my older machines.
It doesn't need drivers installed, its just plug in and it works. I never
did install any drivers for it on my main pc. I have also tried an identical
drive and 3 USB flash drives on this machine and they come up with the same
problem, they work fine on the other machine but have the problem on this
one. I am sure its a USB driver problem or something like that. My current
USB drivers are Intel driver version 7.2.2.1001

Regards,

Pete

[William Anderson]

That could be it...have you tried all of the different ports to see if it
works on another port? Also, check in Disk Management (Right Click My
Computer>Click Manage>select disk management) and assign the drive to a
different letter...like T just to make sure that there aren't any drive
letter conflicts.

[PeteW]

Yeah i changed the drive letters a few times and I have tried all the ports,
ones on the front of the machine, ones on the back and the ones on the hub on
my monitor no joy at all.

[William Anderson]

Hi there Pete,

Are you getting any other errors in the Application and System logs that
coincide with the Event 51?

[PeteW]

None at all just the Event 51. Ive treid it several times today and no other
errors and nothing else corresponds to the same timestamps.

[William Anderson]

Hi there Pete,

Let's try this, right click on My Computer>click on Properties>click on the
Hardware Tab> and then click on Device Manager.

Click on View>Show Hidden Devices

Uninstall any drivers named USB Mass Storage Device.

Then, for the Intel USB Controllers, Right click on them and click on
Properties.

Click on the Driver Tab.

Click on Rollback Driver.

If it does not allow you to roll back the driver, uninstall it.

Reboot the machine.

Let me know how it goes.

[PeteW]

Hi Will

I tried what you suggested but to no avail. I did a rollback on each driver,
tested a couple of times then I uninstalled each one and tested again, errors
same as before.

[William Anderson]

Hi there Pete,

Sorry for the long wait, long weekend and all...

I hate to say it, but you may want to run a repair or a reinstall of Windows
XP. This will help determine if it may possibly be an operating system issue
or something going funky on the hardware side.

[PeteW]

Hi William,

Thank you for your help with this matter, I have gvien up with it and found
myself a workaround, I have linked my Pc up to one of my older ones and I am
able to transfer files back and forth to the drive which is hooked up to the
older machine. Its all working with no problems.

Thanks again

Pete.