External Hard-Drive Not Working Properly

[Guest]

Could anyone help me with the following issue, please?

I bought a hard-drive which connects through USB. Although it works fine
with Windows 2000 and Millennium, on my Windows XP Professional computer I
get this error:
Whenever I connect it and I try to copy/move files (either from the external
hard-drive to the internal hard-drive, or from the internal hard-drive to the
external hard-drive), it tells me that it cannot copy <name of file> because
it cannot find the file specified. And then I get a 'Windows Delayed Write
Failed' message. And I cannot move anything, even though the computer sees
the hard-drive just fine.

From what I understood from the Internet, I presume it might be a security
issue. But I'll be damned if I know how to fix it.

Can anyone help me, please?

 

[Rich Barry]

Does the drive show up in MyComputer with a Letter assigned to it. If
not rt click MyComputer>select Manage>Disk
Management>External Drive. Rt click and assign a drive letter to it.

 

[Guest]

Hi.

No, that's not the problem. It does show up in Windows Explorer and in My
Computer as drives F: and G: (I made two partitions, a FAT32 one and a NTFS
one, that's why). C: is the local hard-drive and D: and E: are DVD-RW and
CD-ROM.

But anyway, so they show up as normal, but the thing is if I copy something
from the external HDD (F: or G and try to paste it onto the internal HDD
(C -- or the other way, from the internal to the external -- I get this
error message as soon as the bar which indicates the process of transferring
files shows the first green line. [You see what I'm trying to say, right?]

The error messages I get are:
-->first, I get a pop-up error message with the red X thing, saying:
"Cannot copy <the file name is supposed to be here>. Cannot find the file
specified."
-->then, I get this yellow dialog box, popping up from the bottom of the
screen, where a yellow triangle with a black exclamation sign also appears:
"Windows - Delayed Write Failed:
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:\$Mft. The data has
been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or
network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere."

So, it wants to copy/move the files, but it cannot, for some strange reason.
Also, if I try to use Nero or Media Player for the files on the external
hard-drive, those programs also fail, because they cannot use the files on
the external hard-drive. Why is that?

Write caching is disabled, so that's not it. At first, it was enabled, but
even after I disabled it the problem kept persisting.

Could anyone help me on this, please? PLEASE!
--

 

[Rich Barry]

Do you have WinUpdate SP2 installed? Are you using a PCI USB2 Card or do
you have a direct connection USB2 on
the Motherboard?

 

[Rube]

I get nothing but problems when I partition a USB hard drive. If you
absolutely MUST use it on multiple PC's, stick with fat32 (and live with the
4gb file size limit.)

Hi.

No, that's not the problem. It does show up in Windows Explorer and in My
Computer as drives F: and G: (I made two partitions, a FAT32 one and a NTFS
one, that's why). C: is the local hard-drive and D: and E: are DVD-RW and
CD-ROM.

But anyway, so they show up as normal, but the thing is if I copy something
from the external HDD (F: or G and try to paste it onto the internal HDD
(C -- or the other way, from the internal to the external -- I get this
error message as soon as the bar which indicates the process of transferring
files shows the first green line. [You see what I'm trying to say, right?]

The error messages I get are:
-->first, I get a pop-up error message with the red X thing, saying:
"Cannot copy <the file name is supposed to be here>. Cannot find the file
specified."
-->then, I get this yellow dialog box, popping up from the bottom of the
screen, where a yellow triangle with a black exclamation sign also appears:
"Windows - Delayed Write Failed:
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:\$Mft. The data has
been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or
network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere."

So, it wants to copy/move the files, but it cannot, for some strange reason.
Also, if I try to use Nero or Media Player for the files on the external
hard-drive, those programs also fail, because they cannot use the files on
the external hard-drive. Why is that?

Write caching is disabled, so that's not it. At first, it was enabled, but
even after I disabled it the problem kept persisting.

Could anyone help me on this, please? PLEASE!
--

Does the drive show up in MyComputer with a Letter assigned to it. If
not rt click MyComputer>select Manage>Disk
Management>External Drive. Rt click and assign a drive letter to it.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, everybody, for answering.

Treeman, thank you very much, I will try the 2 suggested solutions from your
link. (I already disabled write caching, so the third suggested solution on
that page is not good for me. But hopefully the other two...) I'll let you
know if they helped. Thanks again.

Rich Barry, I am quite sure I do not have the SP2 update. But I haven't
needed it so far. And besides, that computer of mine is not connected to the
Internet. I use it for my work, and I am afraid of possible Internet
infections. So, how would I be able to get the SP2 without being connected to
the Internet, and do I really need it? (Will it help my problem, I mean? --
'Cause otherwise I'm set.)
About the USB question -- I have USB 1.1 ports, not 2.0. Other than that, I
have no idea how to reply to your question.

Rube, the FAT32 partition also gives me problems. For me, I don't think the
partition is causing the issue.

Thanks again, all. Talk to you later.

I get nothing but problems when I partition a USB hard drive. If you
absolutely MUST use it on multiple PC's, stick with fat32 (and live with the
4gb file size limit.)

Hi.

No, that's not the problem. It does show up in Windows Explorer and in My
Computer as drives F: and G: (I made two partitions, a FAT32 one and a NTFS
one, that's why). C: is the local hard-drive and D: and E: are DVD-RW and
CD-ROM.

But anyway, so they show up as normal, but the thing is if I copy something
from the external HDD (F: or G and try to paste it onto the internal HDD
(C -- or the other way, from the internal to the external -- I get this
error message as soon as the bar which indicates the process of transferring
files shows the first green line. [You see what I'm trying to say, right?]

The error messages I get are:
-->first, I get a pop-up error message with the red X thing, saying:
"Cannot copy <the file name is supposed to be here>. Cannot find the file
specified."
-->then, I get this yellow dialog box, popping up from the bottom of the
screen, where a yellow triangle with a black exclamation sign also appears:
"Windows - Delayed Write Failed:
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:\$Mft. The data has
been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or
network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere."

So, it wants to copy/move the files, but it cannot, for some strange reason.
Also, if I try to use Nero or Media Player for the files on the external
hard-drive, those programs also fail, because they cannot use the files on
the external hard-drive. Why is that?

Write caching is disabled, so that's not it. At first, it was enabled, but
even after I disabled it the problem kept persisting.

Could anyone help me on this, please? PLEASE!
--

Does the drive show up in MyComputer with a Letter assigned to it. If
not rt click MyComputer>select Manage>Disk
Management>External Drive. Rt click and assign a drive letter to it.
Could anyone help me with the following issue, please?

I bought a hard-drive which connects through USB. Although it works fine
with Windows 2000 and Millennium, on my Windows XP Professional computer I
get this error:
Whenever I connect it and I try to copy/move files (either from the
external
hard-drive to the internal hard-drive, or from the internal hard-drive to
the
external hard-drive), it tells me that it cannot copy <name of file>
because
it cannot find the file specified. And then I get a 'Windows Delayed Write
Failed' message. And I cannot move anything, even though the computer sees
the hard-drive just fine.

From what I understood from the Internet, I presume it might be a security
issue. But I'll be damned if I know how to fix it.

Can anyone help me, please?

 

[Guest]

I tried those 2 things, Treeman, and no luck! The thing with having the
'Programs' option checked was already enabled, and I also tried the
0xFFFFFFFF thing, but I still get the same error. (I also just noticed that
if I select the option View>Thumbnails, and I try to let the thumbnails load,
in a specific folder on the external hard-drive, I still get the 'Windows -
Delayed Write Failed Message', but the partition where that folder is located
(G:\, for the folder I tried) disappears, so I can't see the G: drive in 'My
Computer' anymore. It does appear again if I reboot, but it's as if the
folders that are on the hard-drive were empty.
God damn the Microsoft morons who are responsible for this problem!

Also, before I try that program you suggested, could you please tell me what
happens if the answer to your question about the VIA chipset drivers is
'yes', and what happens if the answer is 'no'? I'd like to figure out if I
still have a chance to solve this problem, because otherwise I would be quite
reluctant to install some software I practically know nothing about, and
which can do so many low-level tests on my computer. (You understand, I just
don't want to mess yet another thing up.)

 

[Guest]

No offense, but I think the discussion is going towards a dead end here. Even
if I find out what motherboard I have, etc., here's the thing: THE HDD IS
SUPPOSED TO WORK WITH ALL COMPUTERS! What difference does it make what
motherboard I have?

I can tell you what I know:
--I know that the cable of the external hard-drive converts from IDE to USB.
--I know that I have 1 internal hard-drive, 1 DVD-RW and 1 CD-ROM
--From the BIOS settings, I found out that Primary Master is the internal
HDD, Primary Slave is 'Not Detected', Secondary Master is the DVD-RW and
Secondary Slave is the CD-ROM. The rest (Third Master and Slave) are also
'Not Detected'.

Can anyone help me, given that information?

Maybe someone has a BIOS configuration I could use. I would be glad to try
to change those settings, because I know I can change them back.

Thanks in advance.

 

[aus]

Many things are sold to 'work with all systems'. A short experience with
computers and you will realise they are not cars or washing machines.
They are infinitely variable - No 2 systems are the same, hence we have
these fun issues. If every known conflict were noted on the side of the
box you would have a big box and no one would buy!


To start with, to use your USB hard drive effectively you can forget it
if you have USB 1 ports as these run too slowly to be effective. Should
it work with USB 1, ok yes it should and I do have clients that do this,
but I wouldnt spend time trying to do that when the outcome will be less
than optimal anyway.

USB 2 runs at up to 40 times the speed of USB 1 and to get USB 2 only
costs $15 - $20 for a 4-port USB 2 card. Its easy to fit (really) and
there isnt anything to configure (you will have to load the driver but
XP will detect the card automatically and do that for you usually).


On XP service pack 2 (SP2) this is recommended as it updates a few of
the hardware drivers plus lots of other things. You can get it free on
CD from Microsoft or get a friend to download it and burn a CD for you.
I do recommend you update as it as security and stability features even
if you are not on the Internet.

 

[Guest]

Hi.

Actually, I thought I had USB 1.1 because whenever I plugged the external
HDD I was getting this message: A Hi-Speed device was plugged into a
Non-Hi-Speed hub, or something like that.

But, after checking all the BIOS settings, I found out that I do have USB
2.0. I don't know why I get that weird message, but then again the whole
thing is weird.

Thank you for the link, Treeman. Maybe I should try the generic BIOS
settings first, and then I will download the program and run it. But after I
get the information, can you continue to guide me, please? (I probably would
get lost by myself, eventually.)

 

[Guest]

I have a somewhat similar problem:

I have recently added a 160Gb Maxtor 6 P160PO drive (NTFS, write cache off)
in an external hi-speed USB housing connected via a 4 port USB-2 card. I have
tried copying large amounts of data (13-20Gb) but after a few minutes, I get
"The drive is not ready" and it disappears from My Computer. If I disconnect
it and re-connect
it, it will reappear. The same happended with a 20Gb drive I swapped in, so
it seems that it's not the drive. I have tried a different port to no avail.
I'm running XP SP2

You can get the data across eventually by copying smaller amounts of data
but it seems to do a few Gb at a time. Not sure if there is a 'magic size' at
which it fails

Is there a limit of file size or is there anything else I should check? If
you can help pls keep it simple as I haven't a clue what a UDMA controller is
or how to check the cable. Thanks