Dear HDD Gurus,

I desperately need ask for your help to solve my problems with an Iomega external HDD. As it is right now I cannot use my brave new storage because it simple does not work the way it is supposed to.
I hope we can remedy this problem..

I've recently purchased an 1TB Iomega Select Desktop Hard Drive (PC/Mac) that connects with an USB 2.0 port to my laptop. I have formatted the drive to NTFS.


I have the following issues with the drive:

A, When I'm using the drive under Windows XP SP3, I encounter with the following problems:
I. If I'm downloading several files with torrent (filesize <= 50MB) and the download destination is the Iomega storage, and the download speed is around 2-3 Megabytes / sec, after a some minutes (not more than 30 minutes), Windows XP pops up the following Delayed Write error message:

"Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file [name_of_the_file_you_want_to_save].
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."

Furthermore, I cannot access the drive anymore after the error message. The drive seems to be recognized but the folders seem to be empty. If I restart the PC, Windows does not recognize the drive connected.
The drive is recognized again if I disconnect and reconnect the power supply of the Iomega drive.

- I have tried disabling caching (Windows setting for optimal performance) and delayed disk write (torrent client setting) but no use. The error still persists.
- I have tried using another USB cable but did not make any difference, I still get the error message.
- I have tried all 3 of the USB ports available on my laptop. No use.
- I have connected the drive to an USB Hub (DLink 4-Port Hi-Speed USB Hub but that does not make any difference either.

II. If I'm extracting large (6GB+) files (e.g with total commander) on the Iomega Drive I get a "Read Error" message and the may fail. The rest of the error symptoms are the same as described above. This error occurs 2 or 3 times from 5 tries.

Copying large files from the Iomega drive to my laptop's HDD works fine without error.

B, When I'm using the drive under Windows 7 (x86) , I encounter with the following problems:

I. If I'm downloading several files with torrent (filesize <= 50MB) and the download destination is the Iomega storage, and the download speed is around 2-3 Megabytes / sec, after a some minutes (usually not more than 30 minutes), Windows hangs. The mouse pointer freezes and I cannot do anything with the Operating System, so I have to hard reset the computer.
The Iomega drive is not recognized afterwards and I must replug the power cable (just as with A/1) to get the drive recognized again.
Windows 7 does not always hang up in case of downloading through torrent to the Iomega Drive.

I've just seen another kind of error symptom which did not freeze my Operating System , however the drive was unaccessible afterwards:
- "Error: The system cannot find the file specified" error message from utorrent client during download. In this case Windows can see the folders and SOME of my files on the drive but most of the folders are empty, even those which have nothing to do with the torrent (e.g. my documents folder.)
The drive cannot be written, "scandisk-ed", or unmounted, files cannot be accessed or transferred (not even those visible.) So the files seem to be there but actually they aren't.
After pulling out and plugging back the power cord of the storage , Windows recognizes the drive and I can access my files.
The torrent download cannot be resumed, not even after a windows restart + storage drive power replug. It says at the hash check that "The system cannot find the file specified." This may happen with completed downloads as well , which I have been seeding for hours.

II. Same as described under A/2.


I'm using a Fujitsu (Siemens) Amilo L7320gw laptop. Its specs are as follows:
Processor Manufacturer: Intel
Processor Type: Celeron M
Processor Speed: 1.7 GHz
Chipset: VIA VN800
Bus Speed: 400 MHz
Installed RAM: 1024 MB
RAM Technology: DDR2 SDRAM
RAM Speed: 533 MHz
HDD Storage Controller Type: IDE (PATA)
Expansion Ports: 3 x USB 2.0, VGA out, RJ-11 (modem), RJ-45


Please help me to solve this before I go crazy!

Please tell me what to check if further investigation is necessary for giving an advice.

Thanks in advance for every helpful word.

You might have a faulty drive.
Test your external drive.

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

Thanks for your quick reply.

Addition to those above:

- The drive can hang up windows during reading too.
- I've checked the drive with chkdsk and it froze into at 10% of Stage 4 of 5 , "Verifying file data." I've disconnected the drive, reconnected it, and started chkdsk again. If froze at the same place.

What tool do you recommend under windows 7 to check the drive?
Is there a chance to find a tool that I can use to check the drive before booting up windows? E.g. pendrive based linux tool , Hiren's boot cd, whatever. To make things even better, the notebook does not have a cd drive, so i must create a bootable pendrive for checking the HDD.

Thanks.

That drive is bad.
Replace and move on.

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com