Alex Hunsley said:
Can anyone recommend a stable external HD housing solution? (If such a
thing exists...)
I've just been having a terrible time with a Safecom external caddy
which I am taking back to the shop. (There's a web forum from the
manufacturer where you get information dribbled to you bit by bit about
how to make the caddy work, or even worse, about how to not lose your data.)
*Keep away* from this disastrous device. More info here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/redlex/19418.html
I have feeling that all-in-1 external HD units may be more stable (as
opposed to caddy + normal IDE HD like I've just tried), can anyone
comment on that?
thanks
alex
The driver package for your enclosure, has folders for ALI5621
and Prolific 3507. Maybe they use the same driver package for
more than one product ? Probably for WinXP, no driver would be
needed (I guess you could check the Device Manager and see what
Windows is using as a driver).
ALI5621 USB to IDE chip. Large drive capability unstated.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040212...m.tw/eng/products/product_detail.php?pserno=8
Prolific 3507 USB/Firewire to IDE chip. This is probably the
chip in your enclosure. Large drive capability unstated
(should say ATA/ATAPI 6 for that).
http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/Products.asp?ID=9
http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/files/PL-3507 Product Brochure 080502.pdf
This advert says 48 bit LBA is supported on PL-3507.
That means no problems at the bridge level, with supporting
a drive larger than 137GB.
http://store.yahoo.com/glob2000/3usb213spmeb.html
Benchmarks 25MB/sec USB, 31MB/sec Firewire (Prolific says the
bridge can do more than the magic 33MB/sec...)
Could the problem be drive overheat inside the enclosure ?
Does it run better with the guts laying open on a table ?
Connecting the IDE drive to a motherboard IDE cable raises
different issues. WinXP SP1 would be a nice thing to be using
in that case. When using a USB or Firewire interface to the drive,
the issue is the bridge board, and as stated above, the PL-3507
is OK.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf
The "weakest link" with enclosures, can be the power connection
to the enclosure. The only enclosures I still own, have a 1x4
style power connector from the brick to the enclosure. That is
a pretty secure fit. If you had a simple round connector, some
of those fit pretty loose. Glitching the power might also be
a reason for the drive to get corrupted.
Your symptoms sound a lot like address rollover zapping sector 0,
but that shouldn't happen if transferring only 60GB of data.
If some part of the system is not 48bit LBA ready, then the
corruption problems should happen at 137GB.
Never plug in both the USB and Firewire cable at the same
time. Use only one cable type at a time.
Paul
