I own a Fantom Drives External Terabyte on USB 2.0 and have been using it without a hitch for about 6 or so months now. Just recently it has been behaving strangely. The drive sometimes randomly disconnects. Afterwards, more often than not, it will reconnect. You can hear the default Windows XP sounds for a disconnecting/reconnecting USB device. Along with this, I notice a bubbled message coming from my taskbar warning me of a "Delayed Write Failed" in the drive. It claims that it could not finish saving the data "H:\$Mft" or "H:\$Extend\...". Other times it will actually report data on the drive itself, like MP3 files or photos, as unable to be saved due to a corrupt device or network connection.
All this happens more frequently when I try to scan the drive. For example, if I try to load up the data from the drive into Windows Media Player LIbrary, the "Delayed Write Failed" happens frequently with disconnects and reconnects of the drive itself.
I tried a few things to troubleshoot the problem. First I tried powering down the drive and starting it back up. This only seemed to work if the drive did not reconnect after it disconnected. I also tried using Firewire instead of USB 2.0, did not help. I also tried using a different USB 2.0 cable, also did not help.
I tried running Chkdsk. I tried using the traditional method of going to the properties of the Drive and selecting Tools and then Error-checking. I selected both options, but it would always tell me that the drive was being used by Windows and that I had to restart to perform a drive scan. However, every time I'd reboot, the scan would not commence upon startup.
I tried running Chkdsk in SafeMode. In SafeMode the scan would commence immediately but would eventually say that the scan could not be completed. I tried running the scan a few times after and it just reported the same error.
I then took the drive and tried it on another PC. It works fine, the data seems to be intact, just as it was on My PC. I then tried to run Chkdsk in the command prompt with the parameters /f /x /r. The scan would get to Phase 2 and then hang on 0% for several minutes. Then after getting to a certain point, it corrects an error in an index and then stops. After this, I'd run the scan again and it would do the same thing, stopping after seemingly correcting an error in an index, sometimes two.
I have yet to see Chkdsk finish or even get to the point of scanning for bad sectors.
The data seems fine, would this be a big indicator of a corrupting drive? Or is it just that the indexes are screwed? Purhaps backing up the data and reformatting the drive would help?
Are there any diagnostics I can find that can thoroughly scan my drive without it hanging up and stopping on each and every index error? Fantom Drives doesn't seem to have any such diagnostic tools on their website...
I'd appeciate any help you can give. Thanks.
All this happens more frequently when I try to scan the drive. For example, if I try to load up the data from the drive into Windows Media Player LIbrary, the "Delayed Write Failed" happens frequently with disconnects and reconnects of the drive itself.
I tried a few things to troubleshoot the problem. First I tried powering down the drive and starting it back up. This only seemed to work if the drive did not reconnect after it disconnected. I also tried using Firewire instead of USB 2.0, did not help. I also tried using a different USB 2.0 cable, also did not help.
I tried running Chkdsk. I tried using the traditional method of going to the properties of the Drive and selecting Tools and then Error-checking. I selected both options, but it would always tell me that the drive was being used by Windows and that I had to restart to perform a drive scan. However, every time I'd reboot, the scan would not commence upon startup.
I tried running Chkdsk in SafeMode. In SafeMode the scan would commence immediately but would eventually say that the scan could not be completed. I tried running the scan a few times after and it just reported the same error.
I then took the drive and tried it on another PC. It works fine, the data seems to be intact, just as it was on My PC. I then tried to run Chkdsk in the command prompt with the parameters /f /x /r. The scan would get to Phase 2 and then hang on 0% for several minutes. Then after getting to a certain point, it corrects an error in an index and then stops. After this, I'd run the scan again and it would do the same thing, stopping after seemingly correcting an error in an index, sometimes two.
I have yet to see Chkdsk finish or even get to the point of scanning for bad sectors.
The data seems fine, would this be a big indicator of a corrupting drive? Or is it just that the indexes are screwed? Purhaps backing up the data and reformatting the drive would help?
Are there any diagnostics I can find that can thoroughly scan my drive without it hanging up and stopping on each and every index error? Fantom Drives doesn't seem to have any such diagnostic tools on their website...
I'd appeciate any help you can give. Thanks.