Backup to external USB drive failing!

[Bossman1959]

I had some major problems with one of my internal hard drives so decided to buy an external USB drive with 300Gb capacity for the purpose of archiving old data files and for backing up the C: drive.

I use Norton Ghost version 9.0 for back-up purposes and set jobs to run automatically. Things seemed to work ok at first with the occasional failure but now things have deteriorated to the point that I am lucky to get one successfull backup every two weeks!

I even tried backing up to a folder on C: then copying the backup image across manually but part way through the file transfer the USB drive disconnected, killed the transfer then reconnected again.

I have rebuilt the computer during the past three months so I know its clean but the success rate is no better. If I can't resolve this then the external drive is of little use apart from copying archived data onto it.

Anyone have any ideas?

PC:- Running Athlon 1600XP chip
OS:- Windows XP home

Additional data
After submitting this I tried backing up using the option where the backup file is split into smaller files. This worked although as I used 100Mb blocks there are a hell of a lot of blocks! I am going to try increasing the block size until I get the optimum size. This may be the answer.....

 

[muckshifter]

Are you using USB 2 ... err, to be more precise "HighSpeed" USB 2 ?

If your Device Manager shows an ENHANCED USB Host Controller, the system has High Speed USB (USB 2.0) capability.

However, you'll also find your MB will have ordinary USB as well ... the trick is finding which one is 'enhanced' ...

If you no got HS ... I would fit the drive internally.

 

[Bossman1959]

I have got 5 USB2 ports and the external drive is plugged into one of them. I have tried switching ports with no success.

However since I posted the original question I have tried using the backup option which splits the data into specified size chunks. So far this has given 100% success! I am gradually increasing the chunk size to see how far it can go before it fails. At the moment I am using 2Gb chunks and all is well....



Thanks for the reply....much appreciated..

 

[muckshifter]

Thanks for the update ... good idea too.

 

[Bossman1959]

Another update....
Used the backup using 1Gb chunks and seemed to be going fine.....for a while!! Then it started back in its old ways again.
I have another idea which I intend to try. Would be interested to know if you feel it could be a possibility that this could be the problem.
I have a large multi socket extension behind the PC which supports all the items including the USB drive. I think its got worse since I added extra items needing power to the sockets. I am wondering if its causing spikes in the supply which are causing the drive to go off line for a short period?? I am gonna try plugging USB into its own supply to see if it improves things.

 

[muckshifter]

I've alway recommend all USB devices have their own power ... a cheap external USB Powered Hub can work wonders, make sure you get one that says "High Speed" or some devices may moan at you.