external USB drive issues with XP?

edited May 2010 in Science & Tech
Windows XP SP3
Dell Laptop
External 1GB SATA samsung hard drive in Acomdata Samba external enclosure connected via USB 2.0

When powering up my external USB drive, mapped as T, it is recognized in windows XP on my dell laptop, and I can access the files, however after a short while, problems begin. I get the "Windows Delayed Write Failed. Windows was unable to save all the data for the file T\$MFT. The data has been lost." The problem is not the result of me disconnecting or powering down the ext drive. It just occurs. After that message, the T drive is generally no longer responsive. I may be able to see the folder tree, but cannot see files inside or open them. The ext drive activity light shows red for hours even though nothing appears to be happening. When I try to shut the laptop down, it hangs and doesn't complete the shutdown until I disconnect the unresponsive T drive. Upon reboot, the T drive is no longer accessible on that PC via the external enclosure. Now, when I remove the 1TB samsung disk drive from the external enclosure and direct connect it via SATA to the motherboard of another PC, the T drive comes up just fine, mapped and named correctly, and there are no issues at all. I run checkdsk on it and there are no errors.

Back on the laptop, I have verified that the USB host controller is working OK, and using Tweak verified all drive letters are not hidden. I read somewhere that an ext drive USB could conflict somehow with firewire external drives, which I have one firewire ext drive connected to the laptop as well. So I made sure the firewire drive was not running when I use the ext USB drive, and even disabled the IEEE 1394 connection device. The Delayed Write error on the T drive still happens. Suspecting bad ext enclosure hardware I bought a replacement drive enclosure. However, each time I connect the T drive in the ext enclosure to the laptop via USB it works for a few moments, and then the error comes up. Moving the disk drive itself to a desktop motherboard and connecting via SATA somehow makes the drive responsive again. However putting it back into the enclosure and connecting via USB to the laptop caused the error again. I have switched out USB cables and tried different USB ports known to work on the PC. Stumped. Has anyone got any ideas of what might be going on here? Much obliged.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited May 2010
    Have you tried connecting the external to your desktop and tested it that way to rule out entirely if it's a laptop or enclosure issue?
  • wpeltolawpeltola Indiana
    edited May 2010
    Sounds like the master file table on your USB drive is fubar..I had that happen before on a server partition. If it's fixable, you should run chkdsk on the drive from a DOS prompt with a "fix" command extension. More on that process here -> http://www.ntfs.com/quest14.htm

    Good luck!

    ::edit:: I see that you already did run Chkdsk on the drive. You might try it again with different extensions, or look at the third-party apps they talk about in the link I gave you.
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