USB Hard Disk Loss

Hi, I didn't see this topic on the forum, apologies if already posted!

I have an Archos external hard drive and a HP Media Drive on my Media Center 2005 PC. I use the Archos as a means to transfer large files between the two PCs - faster than relying on the WLAN! Until recently this has been Ok, but now, when I connect the Archos to the MCE PC I lose either it or the media drive. The hardware status shows that drivers have not been installed, but these drives both use the standard USB disk driver! The Archos works fine on my other PCs. Any help gratefully received.

 

Lack of enough power to run all the USB devices?

If you already plug them into an external USB hub with it's own power source, that can't be the problem but otherwise, it certainly could cause what you are seeing.

 

Mark,

I agree with Newt. The USB ports on a PC are not designed to bdrive much current and thus you should always use a power USB hub when you have and power hungry devices such as a drive.

George

 

Take a look in Disk Management to see what it says about the drive. Try booting the MCE machine and then plugging in the drive after it is running.

Some machines and operating systems are more sensitive to minor partition table errors than others. Try removing all the partitions on a machine that accesses the drive normally, and then connect the RAW drive to the MCE machine. See if you can repartition and reformat the drive on that machine (trying plugging it in both before and after booting the MCE with the drive's power on).

 

Hi,

I would agree that using a non-powered hub would be a problem, however I don't and the external drive is separately powered.