External USB Drive hangs system when transferring data

[Guest]

Hi,

I recently re-installed XP (2 weeks ago) and since then whenever I try to
copy large amounts of data to my external USB2 hard drive after a few minutes
the system hangs (No BSOD). This happens at any time whilst transferring the
data.

I have tried the following :

1 Tried Ext. Drive on 2 other PCs and it checks out OK
2 Re-installed USB 1+2 drivers
3 Running in Safe Mode
4 Reset Mobo settings to default
5 Used all other USB ports
6 Tried to run DiskCheck on boot up but this also freezes after a time
7 Transferring the same data to another internal drive works OK
8 Formatting drive

None of the above has helped in any way. The drive is empty.

Please help as this is my Backup drive and it's driving me mad !!!

Regards,

Phil

 

[Bob Harris]

1. Have you tried changing the USB cable? I actually had one go bad, and
it was preceded by unreliable performance.

2. Try separating the hardware on the PC form the software (i.e., XP and
drivers fort XP). Do this by booting the PC with a LINUX-based rescue-type
CD. Such CDs will not install anythin on the hard drive, but many support
USB, firewire, etc. I suggest KNOPPIX, since it has a very wide range of
automatic hardware support, reads NTSF, and has a Windows-like interface
(maybe more MAC-like, but easy to use). Hint: Plug in the USB drive before
rebooting the PC from the CD. Link to KNOPPIX (large download for CD,
larger still for bootable DVD):

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html