USB2 HDD dropouts in recognition

[Pixel Warrior]

External HDD connected by USB2. The drive sometimes needs to be switched on
and off a few times before it spins up. Sometimes even after it spins up it
is not recognised and needs switching on and off several times. Sometimes it
will spin down while it is being used and then spin up again.
It has done this ever since it was new. It is out of warranty. The problem
has remained the same, i.e. it hasn't got any worse since I got it.
Running Windows XP SP1.
Ideas?

 

[mark lemon]

WinXP power management sometimes interferes with USB devices. Try this.
1. Right click on "My Computer"
2. Click on Properties
3. Go to Hardware
4. Click on Device Manager
5. Go down to Universal Serial Bus Controllers
6. Expand this, and look for USB Root Hub (may be more than one)
7. Double click 'USB Root Hub' to get the properties page
8. Click the Power Management Tab and uncheck the box 'Allow the Computer
to turn off this device to save power'
I know this Power Management Tab exists in SP2, not sure about SP1.
Hope this helps

mark

 

[Pixel Warrior]

thanks - I did this for every USB Root Hub I could find - but no dice, it
still doesn't get recognised consistently. However I found out something
else in the process. When the drive does not register, there is a Device
Cannot Start (Code 10) error in the USB Mass Storage Device. When the drive
does register, the yellow exclamation mark disappears.

 

[mark lemon]

Are you connecting the external drive directly to the pc, or a hub? Hubs
also sometimes don't provide enough power.
mark

 

[Pixel Warrior]

Yes, a USB2 card - with this tip I tried plugging it into the front of my
computer - there are 2 ports there, going straight to the motherboard - so
far this is working fine, fingers crossed, thanks heaps for your help!