750GB external hard drive problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter mga
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mga

I have an external Seagate 750GB hard drive and it is recognized by
the laptop, but I frequently get a "delayed writing failure" error. I
have turned off "write caching" on the disk, but still have the
problem. Any ideas why this is happening?
 
mga said:
I have an external Seagate 750GB hard drive and it is recognized by
the laptop, but I frequently get a "delayed writing failure" error. I
have turned off "write caching" on the disk, but still have the
problem. Any ideas why this is happening?
Click to expand...

Any chance that it's "sleeping" and taking too long to wake up?

Don't know if Seagates utilities work on external drives, but that would be
my next step.
 
Any chance that it's "sleeping" and taking too long to wake up?

Don't know if Seagates utilities work on external drives, but that would be
my next step.
Click to expand...

No, it happens when I am copying stuff, so it is not sleeping. I don't
have this problem with any of several hard drives up to 500GB. I
suspect that the size of this one might be the problem.
 
mga said:
I have an external Seagate 750GB hard drive and it is recognized by
the laptop, but I frequently get a "delayed writing failure" error. I
have turned off "write caching" on the disk, but still have the
problem. Any ideas why this is happening?
Click to expand...

is it a home assembled external unit...........some housings only accept or
are guaranteed up to certain capacity drives.
 
mga said:
I have an external Seagate 750GB hard drive and it is recognized by
the laptop, but I frequently get a "delayed writing failure" error. I
have turned off "write caching" on the disk, but still have the
problem. Any ideas why this is happening?
Click to expand...

You are trying to copy too much information at one time.
Copy large files individually and the rest in cd size chunks.
 
wasbit said:
You are trying to copy too much information at one time.
Copy large files individually and the rest in cd size chunks.
Click to expand...

Holy crap, you just live with such a limitation in your systems?
 
wasbit said:
You are trying to copy too much information at one time.
Copy large files individually and the rest in cd size chunks.
Click to expand...

There is no such thing... You should be able to copy as much as the drive
can hold in one pass.
 
In message
<[email protected]> mga
I have an external Seagate 750GB hard drive and it is recognized by
the laptop, but I frequently get a "delayed writing failure" error. I
have turned off "write caching" on the disk, but still have the
problem. Any ideas why this is happening?
Click to expand...

Are you using USB, Firewire, or eSATA?
 
I have an external Seagate 750GB hard drive and it is recognized by
the laptop, but I frequently get a "delayed writing failure" error. I
have turned off "write caching" on the disk, but still have the
problem. Any ideas why this is happening?
Click to expand...

If this is a passive enclosure, one that can be reasonably
opened without voiding the warranty (if your warranty is
intact, should you need to return it for refund (I would
suspect replacement, while it could help, might instead just
recreate the problem if using same make and model of
product), then by opening it and pointing a fan at it you
might see if reducing the heat buildup helps.

There are other things to try such a different driver for
the controller this drive/enclosure is connected to.
more-

http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid1_gci1041334,00.html
 
Calab said:
There is no such thing... You should be able to copy as much as the drive
can hold in one pass.
Click to expand...

Calab...... and your solution is?

At least the advice that I offered I'm fairly certain will work. It's worked
for me and it's worked for others that I've offered the same advice to.

mga - after a 'delayed write failure' you will probably have to disconnect
the external drive and reboot the laptop before the drive will be seen
again.
 
wasbit said:
Calab...... and your solution is?
Click to expand...

If it fails during a copy, it's broken. REPLACE IT. Kinda obvious.
At least the advice that I offered I'm fairly certain will work. It's
worked for me and it's worked for others that I've offered the same advice
to.
Click to expand...

So, he should trust his data (750gig worth) to a defective drive just
because you'd be willing to live with it?
 
mga said:
I have an external Seagate 750GB hard drive and it is recognized by
the laptop, but I frequently get a "delayed writing failure" error. I
have turned off "write caching" on the disk, but still have the
problem. Any ideas why this is happening?
Click to expand...

Here is part of my previous answer :
- after a 'delayed write failure' you will probably have to disconnect the
external drive and reboot the laptop before the drive will be seen again.

To which I will add :
- if you were copying files you may have some corrupt ones which may need
recopying. If you were moving files (as opposed to copying) then the
corruption has probably caused actual file loss.

Delayed write failure is a known occurence with usb connected drives :
Quote - " The problem seems to be from a memory cache on the USB adapter
for the disk. It seems that when accessing big files, the cache gets
corrupted and the drive becomes inaccessible. To rectify that, a filter
driver can be installed, which will limit the packet size sent to the USB
adapter bus."

As I said before : copy the files in smaller chunks.
If you can't live with that then - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330174
 
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