Pls HELP-Installed Ext HD now nothing works right!

[Guest]

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 1-1/2 yrs. old, 1.6 GHz, 1024Mb RAM w/60G HD
(NTFS). I've recently installed a Seagate 300G external HD (Fat32) w/USB & a
500G Western Digital (NTFS) also USB. I use the Seagate for backup only &
the WD for files, photos, music, etc. The Seagate has been online for a
couple of months & everything has been fine. After I installed the WD,
everything has slowed waaaaay down & software keeps crashing (Paint Shop Pro,
Explorer, Word & others). My computer hangs and sometimes goes on but
sometimes whatever program is running "encounters an error & has to close".
I'm NOT real savy about all this stuff so please be patient with me but
please help!!!

 

[Guest]

When you installed the second drive, did your drive letters change? If they
did, you might solve your problem by going into Computer Management and
changing them back to their original letter.

I don't think that the mixture of formats (FAT32/NTFS) would cause any
troubles, but one never knows. It might also be just that Seagate and WD
don't play nice together. I know that they didn't especially work with each
other as internal drives. I think the WD had to be made Master and the
Seagate a Slave; but, that isn't a problem with USB drives.

One thought: Are the disks both connected to/through a hub? Try connecting
them both to their very own USB port (if you can that is) and see if the
problem goes away.

GP

 

[Guest]

When you installed the second drive, did your drive letters change? If they
did, you might solve your problem by going into Computer Management and
changing them back to their original letter.

I don't think that the mixture of formats (FAT32/NTFS) would cause any
troubles, but one never knows. It might also be just that Seagate and WD
don't play nice together. I know that they didn't especially work with each
other as internal drives. I think the WD had to be made Master and the
Seagate a Slave; but, that isn't a problem with USB drives.

One thought: Are the disks both connected to/through a hub? Try connecting
them both to their very own USB port (if you can that is) and see if the
problem goes away.

GP

No, the drive letters didn't change. C & D are still the same. The
Seagate is E & the WD is F, G & H.

I only have 2 USB ports on my laptop so I have several things connected
through a hub (including the two drives). I can try unhooking my mouse,
other keyboard & fan & just hook the two drives up directly.

I also have all my programs on C but my photos, music, etc. on the WD.
Would the programs have a problem with the photos, etc. being on another
drive??

 

[Guest]

Seems like that is quite a load for the USB port. I wonder if unhooking the
items you mention would improve things. Your computer is new enough to have
USB 2.0 so that should work with the drives.

All the peripherals that you have hooked up draw on the power supply so it
could even be that the laptop power supply may be getting marginal with all
hooked up. Do you find that your battery drains rapidly?

Most programs can be installed on drive C with all the data files on another
drive. In fact, that is the best way to do it. It makes backing up easier.
This could also be the reason you are having problems - especially with
slowness. If the USB drives (E, F, G, & H) are having connectivity problems
you would experience slowness and outright halts or error messages indicating
"file not found" or "File access denied" or things like that.

Do programs with data on C or D run OK? Is it just programs that have their
data on E-H that fail or run slow? You might try running with just ONE of
your USB drives hooked up at a time. If they both work without the other,
then you have some sort of compatability issue or they both just drain the
USB resources too much.

GP

 

[Guest]

Seems like that is quite a load for the USB port. I wonder if unhooking the
items you mention would improve things. Your computer is new enough to have
USB 2.0 so that should work with the drives.

All the peripherals that you have hooked up draw on the power supply so it
could even be that the laptop power supply may be getting marginal with all
hooked up. Do you find that your battery drains rapidly?

Most programs can be installed on drive C with all the data files on another
drive. In fact, that is the best way to do it. It makes backing up easier.
This could also be the reason you are having problems - especially with
slowness. If the USB drives (E, F, G, & H) are having connectivity problems
you would experience slowness and outright halts or error messages indicating
"file not found" or "File access denied" or things like that.

Do programs with data on C or D run OK? Is it just programs that have their
data on E-H that fail or run slow? You might try running with just ONE of
your USB drives hooked up at a time. If they both work without the other,
then you have some sort of compatability issue or they both just drain the
USB resources too much.

GP

The mouse, keyboard & fan are all powered through the laptop. The two
drives & the USB hub are plugged into the wall. Would that make a difference?
I rarely use the laptop on battery so I can't answer the battery drain
question.

Mostly, the programs that have data on the other drives are the problem,
however, the worst one to crash is Explorer (not IE). It's crashing several
times a day - maybe even once an hour.

I haven't moved anything yet but as soon as I finish writing this, I'll
unhook one of the externals & see if that makes a difference.

Thank you so much for spending the time to help. I'm at my wit's end!!

 

[Guest]

Unhooking one external drive at a time, rebooting, and then checking out the
programs might solve the problem. I am concerned now that you tell me that
Explorer itself is crashing. How, exactly, is it crashing? Simply to a
blank desktop and then re-initializing all the icons and menu bar? Or, is it
a bit more serious where it asks you to send a report to MS?

To bed here. I'll read your response tomorrow.

GP

 

[Guest]

Explorer gives me the "Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close
........" Every time it does it I send the report to MS. That's the only
thing that is crashing without files (photos, music, etc.) on another drive.

Right now I have the Seagate offline but I haven't been able to be on much
tonight. I'll try to access a bunch of stuff on the WD in the AM.

By the way, I'm running Norton AntiVirus, Ad-Aware & Spybot. I haven't had
anything strange turn up.

Please don't tell me you think something is REALLY wrong!?!?!? Thanks
again for all your help.

 

[Guest]

I think your entire problem stems from the Explorer crash. Let me think on
why it might be doing it. Does the link to "further details" give you any
information that might ber useful, like the Error Code? This would help a
lot. It looks like this: 0x80000112C or like that. Usually it is the first
code you encounter under the "further info" link.

GP

 

[Guest]

I should have written it down but I didn't. I'll have to wait for it to
crach again. It didn't at all last night so it's overdue. I have a bunch of
other stuff to do this AM so it may be this afternoon before it gives up the
ghost again!!

 

[Guest]

Ever since I unhooked the Seagate drive nothing has crashed. Maybe it is
that they don't like each other. I'll try hooking both back up this weekend
& see if it startsback again!

 

[Guest]

Seems as if that may be correct. I did a poll of some of my customers who
have two or more USB drives: out of 15 or so, 4 reported problems with
crashing when both were hooked up. Of the 4, three had Seagate disks along
with other brands. Unfortunately, in this computer world you can't draw any
conclusions from this. Every computer is different.

Good luck

GP

 

[Guest]

Hey----I sure hope you're still monitoring this thread!!! Everything is
crashing now. I look at the error report for Explorer & Paint Shop Pro but I
wasn't sure what you needed. There were dozens of lines in the report. Let
me know exactly what to look for & I'll get back to you. Thanks AGAIN!

 

[Guest]

Is this after re-hooking up the Seagate? If so, then looks like you have a
dud drive. I'd look into taking it back or contacting Seagate for help.

If not, then you have more serious problems than what I can diagnose using
this thread. I'd suggest taking it to a professional and have them look at
it.

Final thought: Does your System Event Log show any difficulties just before
the crash?

Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer. Look in
both Application and System events. The really bad ones are marked with a
red icon and should be looked in to. The yellow icons are
problems-in-waiting perhaps.

GP

 

[Guest]

For yesterday, I have a bunch of warnings (over 50) from MS Installer about
the Spelling & Grammar checker "Detection of product
'{90280409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0050048383C9}', feature
'SpellingAndGrammarFiles_1033', component
'{CC29EB3D-7BC2-11D1-A921-00A0C91E2AA2}' failed. The resource 'C:\Program
Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof\MSSP3EN.LEX' does not exist."

Then I have errors (20 or so) for "Fault Bucket".

 

[Guest]

Hmmmm. That looks as if your MS Word/Office product is corrupt. You might
try completely uninstalling Word/Office - reboot - and then re-installling
it. The .LEX file is just a lexicon file that is probably the one that is
either corrupt, missing, or has cross-linked to an important system file.
The long string of HEX numbers is just Microsoft's way of saying your product
name (whatever it is). Why they can't just put "MS Office 2003" or something
like that is beyond me. Probably job security. lol

Question: Did you recently try to open a strange document in Word, or, when
you tried to create a new document did Word pop up with a message that you
had to "install this or that" from the distribution disks? If so, then that
may be the culprit all along.

GP

 

[Guest]

I'll uninstall & re-install Office & see if that helps. Could that have been
causing all these problems???

No, I haven't opened anything strange or gotten any messages from Office or
Word. I've probably opened a couple of dozen files in Word with no problem.

Thanks again for all your help!!!!!