USB loses power during backup

About a month ago, I stopped having the ability to back up my files to a thumb drive. I am using a Dell inspiron N5010 about 2 years old, Norton 360 backup, windows 7 home premium, a 32gb thumb drive formatted to NTFS (back up files are no more than 12gb). I set sharing permissions for everybody to have read/write access. I set the screen saver to 600 minutes and turned all of the other power options to never thinking it might be a power problem. I see that there are many posts about this problem on the internet but I see no solution. It seems to be some kind of power option to the USB drives but I don't know this for certain.

As I said, until a month ago I had no problems. I worked with the Symantec people for three days (all the way up to engineering group) and they are sure it is not their software. We were able to backup small areas like favorites and e-mails, but the problem seems to appear when large photo files are encountered. I can do backup directly to the C drive but nothing to the USB slots. I can save individual files to the thumb drives but I cannot do a backup to them.

The backup process will start. It gets about 15% done and then stops. After stopping, I get a message on 360 that there was a "error" during backup with another statement that says, "There is a backup problem. Make sure the destination device is connected and try again." When I check the drive using explorer it says, "The process cannot access the file because another process has locked a portion of the file." Under properties it shows that all space has been used. I then cannot safely eject the device because another program is using it. I have to restart the computer and then I get a message that says the device needs to be formatted before I can use it.

I have gone into device manager and turned off the "allow computer to turn off power." I have tried all of my USB ports.

I'm not sure this is the right area to post this but here it is. Has anybody encounyered a similar problem? Have you been able to fix it? Thanks.

 

Same problem with a different USB drive?

 

I have 2 USB drives. Each shows the same problems. The backup starts but at some point after 10-15 minutes it stops with the error message. I have used three different thumb drives. I scanned each using malware bytes and norton.

In reading around the net this afternoon I'm convinced it's a power problem. Short of buying an ac powered hub, I'm at a loss as to what to do. Thanks.

 

Work your way through each of the 6 steps on this Microsoft Support page, and let us know what happens.

 

I will run through these steps later today and then try to run backup and then reply. Thanks.

 

The thumb drive is now write protected and I can't do anything with it. It is shared by everybody in permissions so I am looking for another solution. The error message says another process has locked a portion of the file. When I try to format it I get a message that it is write protected.

 

USB hard drive is write protected and will not run backup

 

I went through the 6 steps.

976972 said the fix was not applicable to my computer

hotfix successfully unzipped files on the computer 974476

updated x64 based systems kb2709981

After uninstalling serial bus controllers one was added: USB composite device driver version 6.1.7601.17586 on 6/21/2006

After doing the cmd thing you suggested I got an error one the second readonly clear (attributes volume clear) that states, "virtual disk service error: the operation is not supported on removeable drives. The first command was successful.

I also went through the keys in regedit and set the storage device options to zero.

The drive still sates it is write protected.

 

Similar to bslund, I too unable to complete file backup using Windows 7 backup/restore facility, as after 2/3 backup, stops. I have searched many Forums for a solution with no luck and indeed, it appears no solution is available to date. I did not realise that so many Surffers where experiencing the same trouble "NO Backup" of our computers.

 

In general, a Multi-Level Cell is capable of 10,000 write and erase cycles. Divide that by 10 and you get 1,000 days, or roughly 2.7 years.

 

I suggest low level erase the flash drive to ensure any parasites are removed and then high level format using FAT32
hddguru
http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

one of the files already copied over might have some sort protection / copy related control command associated with it and so disrupting further backup - my guess is some of your folders contain commercially sourced files

 

bslund, any reply to those suggestions?

I grit my teeth when I work with external drives. If you don't use "Safely Remove Hardware" when you disconnect a drive or use self-powered USB hardware to avoid power overloads, you can find problems.

If different drives keep doing the same thing (error message) when you connect them, consider that the computer's USB system might be damaged.

Matt