External USB drive file corruption

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me

I'm having problems with my newly bought Xcraft RX-3HU USB2 enclosure.

I fitted a new Seagate 250GB Ultra ATA100 hard drive (ST 3250820A).
My system runs WinXP SP2 and the USB2 is integral to the motherboard.
On boot XP sees the drive fine.
I fdisked and formated the drive (NTFS).
I can copy files to and from the drive.

The problem occurs when I copy large files over.

I used the included P&G software at first but wanted more flexibility so used
Ghost V9 (and 10) and also tried Acronis True Image (V9). Both failed on backup
saying the backup on the Xcraft USB drive was corrupt.
So I copied a couple of files over to the Xcraft drive using Windows Explorer
and the file sizes were reported the same compared to the originals. One file I
copied was a 2GB avi file. When the original is played from the main system
drive it plays fine. When played from the Xcraft drive I notice audio crackling
and color blocks on the video. I copied the Xcraft version of the file back to
the main drive and tried to play it again and got the same audio/video problems.
Appears the the version on the USB drive is corrupted.
( I also did a backup using Ghost and TrueImage to my main system drive and they
verified OK. So did the files when using P&G).

I copied a variety of files over to the Xcraft of differing sizes and then used
good old "fc/b" (file compare/ binary) from the WinXP command prompt window to
compare the original against the ones copied to the Xcraft.
Here's what I got -
88MB compared OK
440MB OK
608MB OK
757MB OK
943MB Numerous differences
1.4GB Numerous differences

It seems that anything much above 757MB gets corrupted when copied to the
Xcraft.

I also used a different hard drive in the Xcraft (freshly fdisked and formatted)
and got the same results.

Any ideas what the problem might be?
 
I'm having problems with my newly bought Xcraft RX-3HU USB2 enclosure.

I fitted a new Seagate 250GB Ultra ATA100 hard drive (ST 3250820A).
My system runs WinXP SP2 and the USB2 is integral to the motherboard.
On boot XP sees the drive fine.
I fdisked and formated the drive (NTFS).
I can copy files to and from the drive.

The problem occurs when I copy large files over.

I used the included P&G software at first but wanted more flexibility so
used
Ghost V9 (and 10) and also tried Acronis True Image (V9). Both failed on
backup
saying the backup on the Xcraft USB drive was corrupt.
So I copied a couple of files over to the Xcraft drive using Windows
Explorer
and the file sizes were reported the same compared to the originals. One
file I
copied was a 2GB avi file. When the original is played from the main
system
drive it plays fine. When played from the Xcraft drive I notice audio
crackling
and color blocks on the video. I copied the Xcraft version of the file
back to
the main drive and tried to play it again and got the same audio/video
problems.
Appears the the version on the USB drive is corrupted.
( I also did a backup using Ghost and TrueImage to my main system drive
and they
verified OK. So did the files when using P&G).

I copied a variety of files over to the Xcraft of differing sizes and then
used
good old "fc/b" (file compare/ binary) from the WinXP command prompt
window to
compare the original against the ones copied to the Xcraft.
Here's what I got -
88MB compared OK
440MB OK
608MB OK
757MB OK
943MB Numerous differences
1.4GB Numerous differences

It seems that anything much above 757MB gets corrupted when copied to the
Xcraft.

I also used a different hard drive in the Xcraft (freshly fdisked and
formatted)
and got the same results.

Any ideas what the problem might be?
Click to expand...


me:
First of all, when you "fdisked" and formatted your USB external HDD, you
were formatting that drive FAT32, *not* NTFS. Possibly that may account for
the problem you're experiencing with copying "large files over" to the
USBEHD.

Why don't you do this for starters?...

Use XP's Disk Management utility (I assume you know how to access it) to
partition & format (NTFS) your USBEHD. That will, of course, result in the
loss of all data on that external HDD but I take it that's of little
consequence for you at this point, right? Then see if the external device
operates properly. If not, we can go on from there if you want.
Anna
 
me:
First of all, when you "fdisked" and formatted your USB external HDD, you
were formatting that drive FAT32, *not* NTFS. Possibly that may account for
the problem you're experiencing with copying "large files over" to the
USBEHD.

Why don't you do this for starters?...

Use XP's Disk Management utility (I assume you know how to access it) to
partition & format (NTFS) your USBEHD. That will, of course, result in the
loss of all data on that external HDD but I take it that's of little
consequence for you at this point, right? Then see if the external device
operates properly. If not, we can go on from there if you want.
Anna
Click to expand...

Sorry Anna, I should not have said "fdisked". I used the term too loosely (I'm
an old DOS guy <bg>). I actually did exactly as you said and partioned (for me -
"fdisked") and formatted using XP's Disk Manager.

Jeff
 
I seen two possible reasons:

1.
A stability problem. Larger files just means a higher probability
that an error occurs. Have you tried it often enough so you can
be sure that there is a magic border between 757MB and 943MB?
Try another USB port, put an USB hub in between, use a different
cable, try it on a different computer...

2.
The USB bridge chip has a 128GB limit and the harddisk had been
partitioned outside this enclosure.
Then FC should show _all_ bytes different within some larger
areas instead of some only.


BTW: FC.EXE work very ineffient - have a look at its memory usage
in the TaskMan while it compares...
My FCB.EXE does a better job:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/fcb_e.html



Uwe
 
Anna said:
me:
First of all, when you "fdisked" and formatted your USB external HDD, you
were formatting that drive FAT32, *not* NTFS. Possibly that may account
for the problem you're experiencing with copying "large files over" to the
USBEHD.

Why don't you do this for starters?...

Use XP's Disk Management utility (I assume you know how to access it) to
partition & format (NTFS) your USBEHD. That will, of course, result in the
loss of all data on that external HDD but I take it that's of little
consequence for you at this point, right? Then see if the external device
operates properly. If not, we can go on from there if you want.
Anna
Click to expand...


Sorry Anna, I should not have said "fdisked". I used the term too loosely
(I'm
an old DOS guy <bg>). I actually did exactly as you said and partioned
(for me -
"fdisked") and formatted using XP's Disk Manager.

Jeff
Click to expand...


Jeff:
Since you ran into the same problem with a different HDD installed in the
USB enclosure I guess we can rule out a defective HDD.

Assuming you're properly connected/configured/installed the devices
involved, and you've correctly copied/moved files to the USB device from
your internal non-defective HDD, and you've properly used whatever backup
program you've been using together with the disk imaging programs for disk
cloning/disk imaging to the USB device, and you're continually experiencing
problems involving corrupt files, etc., then it would appear that you may be
dealing with a defective enclosure.

To verify, you might want to install the HDDs you've been using with the USB
external device in your PC to determine if there are no problems under those
circumstances.
Anna
 
Jeff:
Since you ran into the same problem with a different HDD installed in the
USB enclosure I guess we can rule out a defective HDD.

Assuming you're properly connected/configured/installed the devices
involved, and you've correctly copied/moved files to the USB device from
your internal non-defective HDD, and you've properly used whatever backup
program you've been using together with the disk imaging programs for disk
cloning/disk imaging to the USB device, and you're continually experiencing
problems involving corrupt files, etc., then it would appear that you may be
dealing with a defective enclosure.

To verify, you might want to install the HDDs you've been using with the USB
external device in your PC to determine if there are no problems under those
circumstances.
Anna
Click to expand...

Yes, I've come to same conclusion.
I also tried plugging it into another system, albeit XP SP1, but got the same
problems even with another USB cable.
Have emailed the manufacturer and I'm waiting for a response.

Jeff
 
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