For Geniuses – Strange Problem

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reflect

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I’ve got 2 USB hard-drives and 1 Firewire HD.

USB 300GB
USB 250GB
FIREWIRE 160GB

They are all MAXTOR and all in various external enclosures.

Here’s the problem. I plug the drive in, and turn it on (this happens for BOTH USB AND FIREWIRE)

Windows recognizes the drive. It takes a little bit, but eventually it pops up.

It loads the data…

I open Explorer and access the drive – no problem.

I copy files from any of the 3 hard-drives to my main computer.

The copy starts, it transfers a few files (which seems to be random) then hangs up. The transfer light on the hard-drive enclosure stays on, but it remains stuck on one file. The internal HD in my computer is silent, no activity.

So I thought, OK, problem with my computer, right?

Wrong….I used a Dell at work with XP Pro, no good. I used a laptop at home with XP Pro, no good. And I tried this on an older computer with XP Home, no good. All 3 drives hang during the transfer. I’ve never had any problems before.

I tried to pull off the data on one using a software recovery program, it hangs the drive. Then my computer freezes and I have to reboot.

I enter windows, everything seems fine, then I try again….boom same problem. Any guesses?
 
yes, it will start to copy files, it gets to a random point every time, sometimes 35 megs, sometimes 16, it varies....but some files come across

is it possible that my other computer zapped the drives? This is all I can figure, becuase they worked before I hooked them up to my main computer. Once there, the drive seems to start up fine, then it CLICKS once and then the problems begin. This has happened to all 3 drives on both firewire and USB...does windows imprint any info on the drive when it first detects the drive?

I find it hard to believe that the USB port it zapping the drive because the firewire port had the same problem, and the internal drive works just fine on all 3 computers...

And I have valuable data on the drives so I don't want to format.
 
If by clicks you mean normal data transfer noise (or the noise you get when it spins up) thats ok, if you mean clicks by an actual loud click then you have the odd concidence of all 3 drives failing. Or some really bad external enclosures that maybe somehow are causing the drive to behave oddly.

Test the drives by themselves, pull them out of the USB/Firewire enclosures and put them in your computer. An external drive is nothing more than an internal in an external enclosure. If the drives work fine in your computer nothing is wrong with them and the problem gets a bit more complex. If they don't, you'll need to download a drive diagnostic tool (powermax?) to test the drives.
 
I took out one of the HDs and put it in the system. Only one of the drives is actually clicking now, th 160GB one.

The 300GB one I pulled out of the external drive and put it in the computer. The computer won't boot into windows, but I can access BIOS. What can I do from there?

All 3 USB enclosures are different brands as well, so I don't think it's those, not to mention I've used them with various drives before. It seems like the system I'm pluggin the drive into is actually killing the drive somehow...but no one seems to think this is possible, but it certainly sounds logical, unless all 3 drives did indeed die at the same time, and my computer happened to crash just before all 3 died....Which sounds less likely...
 
Make sure your jumper settings are correct and your BIOS is set to boot off the correct drive.

Your USB isn't killing them if its happening with Firewire as well. Its also not powering the drives, all its doing is providing enough power for the data transfer to happen over the cable, the external power supply is what is powering the drive. I'd get a diagnostic tool and run on that drive you put in your computer. Here is a downloadable ISO for PowerMax which will test your drive.

Its not a hardware issue on the computer end since you tried 3 different computers. That leaves the physical hard drive, the circuitry in the enclosure, or the USB/Firewire cable.

Do you have any added common software to all 3 computers that interfaces with external drives?
 
SNGX1275 said:
Make sure your jumper settings are correct and your BIOS is set to boot off the correct drive.

Done, even tried wrong jumper settings to see if it made a difference. My HD is booting from the right drive, but windows is not loading fully if I have the HD installed internally.

Its not a hardware issue on the computer end since you tried 3 different computers. That leaves the physical hard drive, the circuitry in the enclosure, or the USB/Firewire cable.

I've used 3 different cables, the firewire, and 2 different USB cables. The circuitry is fine on the external drives, becuase I pulled files off of it just the day before, but once I plugged it into my system from hell, it locked. So I guess I'm left with the drive, eh?

Do you have any added common software to all 3 computers that interfaces with external drives?
Click to expand...

Well, just Windows XP, but I've used Pro and Home with no difference. One comp doesn't have Service pack 2, but the other does, so that was different, but still the same problem on both systems


Is it possible that I can't copy mass files as once? I haven't tried just copying 1 file at a time...not that this should matter, but is there anything that would prevent it from doing mass copies?


btw, I will get that diagnostic tool and run it with the drive installed. I have to go home first and get it set up. Thanks for the info though, hope it works.
 
Are you still online, I can help have 3 of these so called drives and they are Maxtor. I've notice that you can only hook up 2 max. Eventhough they have their own power still two. The 3 one doesn't show up. How many PCs you got on your network you could share one of these drives out to one of those then pull in the data over the network. That's what I do to save different images of my systems from laptop to desktop over the network using Acronos Image. Ghost Walker can do that same.

Also note if you here a knocking or metlic sound from the drive it's going bad. I would clone that drive to another HDD right away before you loose the data.
 
reflect said:
Done, even tried wrong jumper settings to see if it made a difference. My HD is booting from the right drive, but windows is not loading fully if I have the HD installed internally.
Click to expand...
Is there any of this clicking going on while Windows is trying to boot? At what point during the boot up process does it hang?

Yes try the diagnostic tool, its really the only way we can eliminate the drive itself being bad.
 
Really shouldn't have those drive hookup while booting up the PC as the system would go to external source and by-pass the HD.
 
What are you talking about tipstir? He can't get it to boot into Windows when its hooked up internally. EVEN if he had them hooked up by USB/Firewire and on when he turned the system on no system defaults to booting off an external device unless manually set that way, it will always look for internal options first.
 
I just know on DELLs at work or thumb drives if hooked up won't boot system you just get a blank black screen. That's what I am talking about with these USB drives. Yeah you can have them to back-up or restore data like we do here using Maxtor 200GB drive. Then force them to bootup to USB/DVD or Onboard NiC using the F12 key.
 
reflect said:
yes, it will start to copy files, it gets to a random point every time, sometimes 35 megs, sometimes 16, it varies....but some files come across

is it possible that my other computer zapped the drives? This is all I can figure, becuase they worked before I hooked them up to my main computer. Once there, the drive seems to start up fine, then it CLICKS once and then the problems begin. This has happened to all 3 drives on both firewire and USB...does windows imprint any info on the drive when it first detects the drive?

I find it hard to believe that the USB port it zapping the drive because the firewire port had the same problem, and the internal drive works just fine on all 3 computers...

And I have valuable data on the drives so I don't want to format.
Click to expand...

Move all the useful data off one external at a time, and format each Western Digital external using Windows XP's FORMAT command. Forget about copying the Western Digital utilities and autorun crap, it's not necessary. If you want the utilities, download the latest from WD's site... Don't argue with this! It will make your Externals run like they were designed to work
 
SNGX1275 said:
Is there any of this clicking going on while Windows is trying to boot? At what point during the boot up process does it hang?
QUOTE]

It goes through bios and then hangs on the windows initiation screen. I never rebooted with the clicking drive installed internally, so I'm not sure...but the 300GB drive I've installed and that's when it hangs. The computer boots up fine if I use the external enclosure. I'm going to stick with getting the 300GB to work, since It's most important.

Tipster, I only have 1 HD attached at a time, and my BIOS is set to pick my internal IDE as first boot, then CD and the third option is my DVD, so it's never tried to boot from USB.

Tmagic650 they're maxtor HDs, not that it matters....but in any case, that's the problem! I can't move the information off of the drive. My main drive crashed and I had the info backed up on 3 USB drives, which are all dead now...I can't format till I pull 2 projects off of the dirve...tried data recovery, hangs the drive.
Click to expand...
 
Tmagic650 said:
Move all the useful data off one external at a time, and format each Western Digital external using Windows XP's FORMAT command. Forget about copying the Western Digital utilities and autorun crap, it's not necessary. If you want the utilities, download the latest from WD's site... Don't argue with this! It will make your Externals run like they were designed to work
Click to expand...
Are you in the right thread?
 
SNGX1275 said:
Are you in the right thread?
Click to expand...

I can't believe all the drives are bad... Do you? This is the right thread if reflect can just format one of those Maxtors... Sorry about the Western Digital comment. The hard drive brand really doesn't matter. The drives may all be corrupt, but they can't all be bad
 
Could my main computer be corrupting the drives when it accesses it? They worked before. I'm doing the diagnostics tonight. I don't want to format, just incase one of them fails, if they're starting to go bad or what. There has to be a way to retrieve the data first
 
Tmagic650 said:
I can't believe all the drives are bad... Do you? This is the right thread if reflect can just format one of those Maxtors... Sorry about the Western Digital comment. The hard drive brand really doesn't matter. The drives may all be corrupt, but they can't all be bad
Click to expand...
Nope. I don't think they are all bad, I think if one clicked abnormally that it might be, I didn't hear the click so I can't say for sure, I'm asking him to check that with diagnostic tools though. I know the drive brand doesn't matter for this issue, but you said western digital more than once and he said maxtor earlier, so I asked. You also bolded your whole comment like you were the final authority. Also with your western digital comment you mentioned autorun crap, nobody ever mentioned autorun crap, and its apparent that these weren't store bought WD (or any other brand) factory made externals, seems to me like these are external enclosures that he put hard drives he bought at different times in them (because he mentioned having other drives in them in the past), so there would be no branded autorun software on these drives at all.

They could be corrupt, but if you format he loses the data, and he can't get to the drives right now, so I was earlier asking about the cables and asked him to put the drives inside the comp to take care of that issue. At that point he's only removed 1 drive and is going to go with that one now, so thats why I'm pushing the diagnostic check now, because for the time being we are dealing with 1 drive.
 
Yes SNGX1275,
I have a Western Digital store bought external 250GB right here. I guess that I was just preoccupied with getting it reading and writing properly
 
I ran the maxtor diagnostic tool as requested, and got some wonderfully bad news....

all 3 drives gave me the "warning this drive has errors during the drive recal test....

"This drive is failing and must be replaced." on all 3 drives

I called Maxtor with the diag. code and the drive all needs to be replaced....

I can't afford the $ to get data recovery off of the drive...and of course their warrenty doesn't cover it.

What's next? And is my main computer causing this issue? I'm scared to hook up another drive. What say you?
 
Man sorry to hear that. Do you treat these things bad? Move them a lot when they are spinning?

Well regardless to your answers to that, there are some ways you can attempt to get data off the drives, but I don't have much knowledge. Perhaps one of the other guys in this thread can give you some advice on that. I'd suggest a forum search on data recovery in the meantime, I know there are tons of threads involving that subject.

I agree this is pretty odd (like I said in my first post) that all 3 would go bad, but it shouldn't have anything to do with your computer, the only link is a usb/firewire cable. It may be possible you are getting bad power to your drives from their power supplies, but I don't think there is any way you can blame a computer for the failures.
 
I agree SNGX1275,
this is just too wierd... 3 Maxtor drives bad. What are the odds??? All the possible tests have been done. Are all the drives the same capacity or model?
 
lol, no I keep them as still as possible. I haven't even touched one of the drives before two days ago. It's the wierdest thing I've EVER encountered. I should be getting a new drive in tomorrow. If this one f's up when I plug it in, I'm going to go nuts....
 
Try running an xcopy through a cmd shell.
Something like this (below); it will not stop even if errors exist.

The >C:\copyresults.txt is a piped text file from the copy so you can see what it got and what it missed. Replace the drive letters and paths as needed.

xcopy E:\*.* F:\Files-from-E-Drive /h /i /s /c /e /r /k /y >C:\Copyresults.txt

Make sure the folder exists on the drive you are copying to (eg: Files-From-E-Drive).

Let us know how you go :grinthumb
 
Even on the Maxtor, it is fairly simple (if you have a good fourth drive) to install the maxtors, one at a time, as slave drives, then drag and drop all the data to the good drive.
It is also easy to use data recovery programs to copy the data on the bad Maxtor to the good drive...
Be advised that you must not turn off the Maxtor until all data is transferred, because you do not know when it will never work again.
 
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