Can read data from external USB drive, but not write to it.

Hi everyone,

I have a strange little scenario going on with XP and a 40 gig Maxtor
drive enclosed in a Bytecc ME-350U2 USB 2.0 enclosure. The pc has XP
with SP1 on it, and all available updates have been applied through
Windows Update. Here is what happens:

When I connect the external drive through USB and power it up (it's
not bus-powered) XP tells me that a USB Mass Storage device is has
been attached. It also indicates that it is a USB 2.0 device, and it
will run at USB 1.1 speeds because the mobo doesn't have a 2.0 bus.
XP's autorun feature then kicks in and lets me choose the default
action for when I connect the drive (play media, browse files, etc. .
.. ). I can then browse the files, and read data from the drive fine.
The strange thing is that I can't write any data to the drive. If I
try, I get a message saying that the request can't be performed
because of an I/O device error.

So far, I have tried the following:

- Uninstalled all USB controllers, rebooted, let XP detect them
again, and reinstall the appropriate drivers.

- Updating the drivers, but XP just tells me that I am already using
the best drivers.

- Connecting the drive to every USB port on the PC to see if that
would make a difference.

- Disconnecting all other USB devices in case a power issue was the
cause (although since the drive is self-powered, I can't really see
why power would be a problem).


In addition to the fact that I can read from the drive, but not write
to it, the situation is also strange because I used to be able to
write to the drive from this PC. Although, I have not done so in a
few months. In the meantime, since it is a shared PC, I know that the
other users have gotten devices like MP3 players, and USB key drives,
so there might have been some third-party drivers installed on the
system. I would have thought though that by uninstalling and
reinstalling the USB controllers, would have put the proper drivers
back into place, but I am not sure how this works.

Any help would be really appreciated with this problem, as I can't see
how else to progress in troubleshooting it. Thanks in advance, and
sorry for the long post. I just wanted to be as complete in the
problem description as I could.

Ollie

Go to control panel, right click the external drive and the click properties, click the Hardware tab, highlight on the external drive and then double click, click the Policy tab and then select 'Optimize for performance", click OK. Use the safely remove icon to uninstall the ext. drive and then reboot.

Try again to check if it can be write to the ext. drive.
But from now on, make sure you must use the safely remove icon to remove the ext. drive or you may lose all data on the ext. drive if you forget to remove it by using the safely remove icon.

However, I would suggest you to buy a PCI USB 2.0 card (preferable to use NEC chips or Intel chips, do not use Via chips), it is cheap, around $14 with 4 ports but the transfer rate is 48 times faster than USB1.1

Hope it helps
--
Peter


"Ollie" wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I have a strange little scenario going on with XP and a 40 gig Maxtor
> drive enclosed in a Bytecc ME-350U2 USB 2.0 enclosure. The pc has XP
> with SP1 on it, and all available updates have been applied through
> Windows Update. Here is what happens:
>
> When I connect the external drive through USB and power it up (it's
> not bus-powered) XP tells me that a USB Mass Storage device is has
> been attached. It also indicates that it is a USB 2.0 device, and it
> will run at USB 1.1 speeds because the mobo doesn't have a 2.0 bus.
> XP's autorun feature then kicks in and lets me choose the default
> action for when I connect the drive (play media, browse files, etc. .
> .. ). I can then browse the files, and read data from the drive fine.
> The strange thing is that I can't write any data to the drive. If I
> try, I get a message saying that the request can't be performed
> because of an I/O device error.
>
> So far, I have tried the following:
>
> - Uninstalled all USB controllers, rebooted, let XP detect them
> again, and reinstall the appropriate drivers.
>
> - Updating the drivers, but XP just tells me that I am already using
> the best drivers.
>
> - Connecting the drive to every USB port on the PC to see if that
> would make a difference.
>
> - Disconnecting all other USB devices in case a power issue was the
> cause (although since the drive is self-powered, I can't really see
> why power would be a problem).
>
>
> In addition to the fact that I can read from the drive, but not write
> to it, the situation is also strange because I used to be able to
> write to the drive from this PC. Although, I have not done so in a
> few months. In the meantime, since it is a shared PC, I know that the
> other users have gotten devices like MP3 players, and USB key drives,
> so there might have been some third-party drivers installed on the
> system. I would have thought though that by uninstalling and
> reinstalling the USB controllers, would have put the proper drivers
> back into place, but I am not sure how this works.
>
> Any help would be really appreciated with this problem, as I can't see
> how else to progress in troubleshooting it. Thanks in advance, and
> sorry for the long post. I just wanted to be as complete in the
> problem description as I could.
>
> Ollie
>

"Peter" <Peter@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:<585E6C04-CCE6-4444-B75A-6B7ABDB2EBC4@microsoft.com>...
> Go to control panel, right click the external drive and the click properties, click the Hardware tab, highlight on the external drive and then double click, click the Policy tab and then select 'Optimize for performance", click OK. Use the safely remove icon to uninstall the ext. drive and then reboot.
>
> Try again to check if it can be write to the ext. drive.
> But from now on, make sure you must use the safely remove icon to remove the ext. drive or you may lose all data on the ext. drive if you forget to remove it by using the safely remove icon.
>
> However, I would suggest you to buy a PCI USB 2.0 card (preferable to use NEC chips or Intel chips, do not use Via chips), it is cheap, around $14 with 4 ports but the transfer rate is 48 times faster than USB1.1
>


Peter, thanks for trying to help. I tried your solution, but it did
not correct the situation. Also, I know that this is unrelated to
your solution, but I should have mentioned in my original post, that
the drive works on other PC's. So, for other posters who read this
thread, I do not believe it is a harware issue with the drive.