USB hard drive works in safe mode; freezes computer otherwise

[justme]

Hello.

I have an 80GB hard drive in a USB 2.0 drive enclosure. The drive was
formatted on one XP machine internally, hooked onto an IDE cable. I
then placed the hard drive in the enclosure, plugged it into that same
computer's USB port, and powered the enclosure on. XP recognizes the
enclosure flawlessly.

However, if I hook up the USB enclosure to my new XP MCE laptop, the
system completely freezes and I have to kill the power to the laptop.
As a sign of hope, if I boot into safe mode without the USB enclosure
hooked up to my laptop, and then attach the drive once in safe mode,
the device works perfectly and I can access files on the drive.
However, if I have the USB drive attached to my laptop and boot up XP,
the system freezes before getting to the log in screen.

I have a powered USB hub so it is not a power issue.

Any help? Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
Thanks

 

[Unnamed]

Hello.

I have an 80GB hard drive in a USB 2.0 drive enclosure. The drive was
formatted on one XP machine internally, hooked onto an IDE cable. I
then placed the hard drive in the enclosure, plugged it into that same
computer's USB port, and powered the enclosure on. XP recognizes the
enclosure flawlessly.

However, if I hook up the USB enclosure to my new XP MCE laptop, the
system completely freezes and I have to kill the power to the laptop.
As a sign of hope, if I boot into safe mode without the USB enclosure
hooked up to my laptop, and then attach the drive once in safe mode,
the device works perfectly and I can access files on the drive.
However, if I have the USB drive attached to my laptop and boot up XP,
the system freezes before getting to the log in screen.

I have a powered USB hub so it is not a power issue.

Any help? Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
Thanks

Suggestions:

1) Run SFC /SCANNOW from the START/RUN prompt. You may have a systems file
corruption.

2) You may need to install something on the laptop that you didn't need on
the other machine. Eg, my laptop doesn't do USB2 as it is a bit over a year
old. In order to get it to work properly with MY external USB 80gig HD, I
had to install software for the USB to IDE cable and after that all was
well.

3) There may be a conflict somewhere on the system that doesn't happen in
SAFE MODE. Check BIOS to make sure that "Plug and Play OS" is ENABLED. That
may clear the conflict.

4) As you are in safe mode, something isn't loading that is causing this in
normal mode. Check what loads in normal mode that may account for this.

 

[justme]

Hi.

thanks for taking the time to reply.

I will try what you suggested.
You wrote, " I had to install software for the USB to IDE cable and
after that all was well." Where did you get this software?

Thanks again.

 

[Unnamed]

Hi.

thanks for taking the time to reply.

I will try what you suggested.
You wrote, " I had to install software for the USB to IDE cable and
after that all was well." Where did you get this software?

It came with the external drive housing (not the hard drive itself) on CD.
If you don't have that, I suggest you go to the web site of the manufacturer
of the external hard drive housing and see if there are drivers to download,
there.

 

[justme]

After the ultimate sacrifice (reinstalling XP), with no surprise, my
external hard drive works. Now that I have a working system on which I
can troubleshoot, it seems as though one of several programs that I
installed kills proper functionality to the external hard drive. I
think it is either: Nero (6.00.15), Alcohol 120%, Symantec Ghost, or
DVD X Copy. I hope to isolate the problem completely then give the
software maker a piece of my mind. Thanks for the help.
ps. I didn't use the drivers that game with my enclosure. XP
automatically used usbstor.sys

 

[Unnamed]

After the ultimate sacrifice (reinstalling XP), with no surprise, my
external hard drive works. Now that I have a working system on which I
can troubleshoot, it seems as though one of several programs that I
installed kills proper functionality to the external hard drive. I
think it is either: Nero (6.00.15), Alcohol 120%, Symantec Ghost, or

I use Nero 5.x and have access to 6 through other machines. It isnt Nero. I
dont believe it is Ghost either.

DVD X Copy. I hope to isolate the problem completely then give the
software maker a piece of my mind. Thanks for the help.
ps. I didn't use the drivers that game with my enclosure. XP
automatically used usbstor.sys

Yeah but it doesn't always automatically work USB2 with the device. I know
it does SOME times if you have SP1 installed but you may even be able to get
better transfer rates depending on the age of your machine if you use it.
Eg, a 1gig P3 I have access to with a USB2 card installed copies about 6
gigs in 10 minutes roughly. My P4 1.7ghz with new Gigabyte motherboard does
it in 4 minutes with the motherboard USB2 drivers. Without the USB2 card's
own drivers installed on the P3, it took about 15-20 minutes for the same
amount. MUCH faster than USB1.x but still not up to full USB2 speeds.