WD external drive not playing well

[Joe Starin]

Dell laptop, Windows XP Home, one play/burn DVD drive.

Have a Western Digital My Book Essential USB 2.0 320GB external drive.
Whenever I connect this external drive then power up, I get a black screen
and nothing else -- as soon as I disconnect the drive, Windows boots
immediately.

When I connect the drive AFTER the laptop is running, all processes seem to
slow down or stop. Every simple click takes 2 to 3 minutes or the request
won't complete at all. Can barely run Belarc Advisor. Can barely view "My
Computer." Can barely even switch Web pages. Not a crash but I get a very
long hourglass no matter what I do and/or this error message:

"The specified I/O operation on \Device\HARDDISK1\DR14 was not complete
before the time-out period expired."

When I disconnect the external hard drive -- instant response and the
process completes.

I finally find out that the WD is the F drive. The drive shows up using a
Right Click on My Computer / Manage / Disk Management. I see all the drives,
including the WD. But my Windows XP backup program does not see the F
drive - only the E drive and I'm asked to insert a disk into the drive. When
I try to change the target drive to F using the "Save as" menu, I get the
long pause and this message: "F:\ is not accessible. The semaphore time-out
period has expired."

So, I close the backup program. Can't even copy the "My Documents" folder
manually using a simple COPY command -- everything hangs up, hourglass time.

I need to back up my system immediately and am at a loss. WD has not yet
responded -- and likely will not be of much help given my previous
experience with their tech support when installing a new WD internal hard
drive earlier this year in another PC. They just gave up.

Anyone have any thoughts? Can't seem to get to first base here. Thank you.

Joe


--
Joseph R. Starin
2025 Radcliffe Drive
Westlake, Ohio 44145-3246
440.223.TEXT (8398)
email: (e-mail address removed)
blog: www.joecalled.blogspot.com
"Business writing that leaves a mark."

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Dell laptop, Windows XP Home, one play/burn DVD drive.

Have a Western Digital My Book Essential USB 2.0 320GB external drive.
Whenever I connect this external drive then power up, I get a black screen
and nothing else -- as soon as I disconnect the drive, Windows boots
immediately.

When I connect the drive AFTER the laptop is running, all processes seem
to slow down or stop. Every simple click takes 2 to 3 minutes or the
request won't complete at all. Can barely run Belarc Advisor. Can barely
view "My Computer." Can barely even switch Web pages. Not a crash but I
get a very long hourglass no matter what I do and/or this error message:

"The specified I/O operation on \Device\HARDDISK1\DR14 was not complete
before the time-out period expired."

When I disconnect the external hard drive -- instant response and the
process completes.

I finally find out that the WD is the F drive. The drive shows up using a
Right Click on My Computer / Manage / Disk Management. I see all the
drives, including the WD. But my Windows XP backup program does not see
the F drive - only the E drive and I'm asked to insert a disk into the
drive. When I try to change the target drive to F using the "Save as"
menu, I get the long pause and this message: "F:\ is not accessible. The
semaphore time-out period has expired."

So, I close the backup program. Can't even copy the "My Documents" folder
manually using a simple COPY command -- everything hangs up, hourglass
time.

I need to back up my system immediately and am at a loss. WD has not yet
responded -- and likely will not be of much help given my previous
experience with their tech support when installing a new WD internal hard
drive earlier this year in another PC. They just gave up.

Anyone have any thoughts? Can't seem to get to first base here. Thank you.

Joe

The first thought is that it isn't a good idea to post personal info to
Usenet.

Second, to the point, there are actually two components here, the drive
itself, and the case it's in. And it's probably the USB2 interface
circuitry in the case that's causing the problem. The drive itself isn't
likely to be at fault.

Some Dell systems have problems with some USB drives, or more properly
interface circuits, where booting can fail or be hopelessly slow with the
devices attached.

So, you might want to try getting a $25 - $30 plain USB2 case or adapter and
moving the drive over there to test. If it works properly, you can be
pretty sure that the problem is with the WD case's circuitry.

HTH
-pk

 

[Twayne]

The first thought is that it isn't a good idea to post personal info
to Usenet.

Second, to the point, there are actually two components here, the
drive itself, and the case it's in. And it's probably the USB2
interface circuitry in the case that's causing the problem. The
drive itself isn't likely to be at fault.

Some Dell systems have problems with some USB drives, or more properly
interface circuits, where booting can fail or be hopelessly slow with
the devices attached.

So, you might want to try getting a $25 - $30 plain USB2 case or
adapter and moving the drive over there to test. If it works
properly, you can be pretty sure that the problem is with the WD
case's circuitry.
HTH
-pk

to the OP:

And try using a different USB port on your PC and perhaps a different
cable, too. Longshots but they're really aggravating to find later than
sooner to be the problem.
I am assuming you DO have more than one USB port in use, right? So at
least you know that USB in the computer is functional? If you don't
have other USB devices working, you need to connect something just to be
sure it is working.

Actually, it sounds like a power problem with the external drive case.
The advice to try another case is good and likely, IMO, to solve your
issues. At the same time it's not unheard of for drives to fail
prematurely either, so ... you have to be prepared. Fortunately drives
that size are very cheap right now. Up to about 500 Gig seems to be
very reasonably priced at the moment.

1. Prove the PC USB works.
2. Prove the cabling/connector are good.
3. Change the case & guts; see what happens.
No joy? You might be looking at a bad drive. In my WD Ebook it's a
standard disk drive so it's possible to take it out and mount it inside
the computer. It's just a standard EIDE type drive. Check though; WD
also makes SATA versions of those drives.