Resolved [External drive turning on and off]

Hello:
My OS is Dell dim. 3000, win xp home, sp3, Toshiba 320GB USB external HD

I am struggling with a Toshiba external HD that works sometimes but generally turns on and off when first connected. I have done everything imaginable to determine if the problem is with the (new) Toshiba drive itself or within my computer. I thought I had the problem fixed by formatting the drive yesterday with the Device Manger while it was in a working state. After several formats!, I placed a large amount of data/info on the external drive assuming it is now working but this morning the Toshiba drive is right back to turning on and off!!!

My last effort was to look at the Event Log (which I do not know how to read) and saw may events within the time frame of my Toshiba failures so here is the event log info - please help me understand the message and what to do about it...............

Applications:
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( gusvc ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Service stopped.

System [there are a huge number of yellow "Warning" listings under System like this]
The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

... I am pretty sure these refer to the faulty performance of the Toshiba drive but then, I really don't know how to interpret an event log entry.
Thanks,
Jim

 

How do you mean "on and off "? Does the LED go on and off.

Does the drive disappear in Explorer? Does it reconnect and maybe come up with a selection for what to do?

As Steve said, try running it on another computer. I am not sure what you mean when you say it turns on and off.

Matt

 

All's well now thanks to a few other forum posts that showed me how to change the options under Power management and an App. called NoSleep tool which prevents the external drive from turning off randomly like it was. Not sure which "fix" is working but the Toshiba drive is working correctly like it did when I first used it - at least for now. Not sure what happened but these power fixes seem to be doing the trick. No, I never did test it on another computer but I always believed it was not a problem within the ext. HD anyway.
Thanks for your help,
Jim

 

Good to hear. Thanks for letting us know.

 

LOL - seems like every "fix" is good for about an hour! Next day, the Toshiba performs as bad as ever! Looks like I have to either take it to a tech for exam ($$$$) or send it back to Toshiba. All my other USB devices perform perfectly so I guess I have to face it that the Toshiba drive is faulty after all........oh well, at least my few flash drives still work - just won't depend on any of them as permanent storage tools. Seems CDs are still the most reliable places to store stuff even if drives are more convenient.
Thanks to all of you for your interest and support on this.........
Jim

 

Thanks for the updated info.

I'm still not sure what you mean by on and off.

If it does something similar when connected to another computer, that will prove it. Maybe Toshiba will ask if you have tested it in the same way.

Here, we would need to take it back to the place of purchase, within 12 months, after that, see if Toshiba offer an extended warranty (I think ).

If you are sure it is broken, just mark the thread Resolved as I requested, thanks.

Matt
PS: I will modify the title of the thread, I doubt anyone will be able to relate the event logs.

 

.. Mattman: It turns on and off in the sense that it appears momentarily in the Explorer list under My Computer then disappears before I can take any actions on it. The light "blinks" or goes out then back on. It's acting weirder and weirder as I try to format it, disable it, reboot, enable it again, etc. - just about everything I can think of or have been told by other helpers and now it won't appear in Explorer at all. It appears under the Devices list in Device manager but not in the Disk manager list. I intend to call Toshiba on Monday and try to get a tech to help me here or tell me where to take it to a Toshiba service lab. If it's too expensive or a hassle, I'm sending it back to Toshiba as the warranty is good for about 3 years. I have gone to the Toshiba site and found little if any help there but I was to late to get a tech on line or by phone. Unless there is some simple, obvious solution, I think this drive is SOL. I will keep you informed and let you know when and if I find a solution to this.
Jim

 

Don't know how many times I've encountered problems with flaky enclosure electronics. More often than not the hard drive will pass all tests when connected directly to a computer but then starts acting up, or not at all, when put back in the enclosure.

Solution: New enclosure.

 

So today, 3-10-12, I instinctively decided to plug in the Toshiba portable HD once more and - WALLAH - it's showing up in the Explorer list so I went to work on it to figure out how to manage the drive. I also decided to investigate this NTI backup thing so I downloaded the app and tried it out. Amazing! NTI has placed everything in my Main hard drive C into the Toshiba drive and it seems like the Toshiba HDD is performing correctly now! I can't figure out if it's got something to do with NTI or what but right now, Toshiba is WORKING!!!!! I did not know about that NTI backup app but am now wondering if I should have been running it all along??? All I ever wanted from the portable HDD was a back up or storage location and now, using NTI, the storage process is quick, simple, automatic and (hopefully) reliable in the future. Of course, I'm also using other drives and CDs as backup locations for my valuable (LOL) stuff.
Wish me luck gang...............
Jim

I'd say this problem can be marked as solved.