I have had lots of USB external hard drives in my time and I would allways have "Time Out" problems with them especially when transfering files which are over 1GB.I resonally brought a 400GB USB external harddrive and I have a newer computer now and I am STILL getting the same problems,it makes me crazy!!I have allready three internal harddrives and am stugglling with the temperatures so another internal one is out of the question.
What would you suggest?
Update USB drivers?
I have heard of a usb controller but I am not famillar with such a device
I am running XP PRO SP2 All the updates..
Thanks
USB "time out"?
Can you elaborate on the problem? Is there an error message, or what are the symptoms of the problem?
I guess he means that it transfer's files but then the rate of transfer decreases with increasing file size.. This happens to me rarely though, but it does happen 
If I would've been in your place, I would never have bought newer drives, instead tried onto working with the same thing.. Why don't you try on someone else's PC, you know the motherboards make it difficult at times as well, the USB Connector and the Internal Circuitry, the possibilities are endless..
Still, if it does give the same error message, you might try out cutting the file into packets, like with WINRAR.. ZIP whatever you need to transfer, and then divide it into equal sized files, for say, 100 mb each...
I hope this works.. My personal suggestion would've been of many DVD-RW's.. Well, this would be too hectic at times and would seem equally un-manageable, but I just like to go this way... I have a knack of keeping things where they belong, so I guess it goes fine with me.. 
Warm Regards, here is good question what's the partition format?
FAT32, NTFS, or ...?
| fadirocks wrote: |
here is good question what's the partition format?
FAT32, NTFS, or ...? |
I know the maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GiB
but that not the problem here.
My hard drive just seems to hang up on me whilst transferring larger files and crashes windows.
The question which I would like to know if anyone else is experiencing these problems whilst transferring files of a couple of GB (using an external USB harddrive)
Thanks
Regards MarrsI have 2 external HDs, one in FAT32 and another in NTFS, and I routinely transfer 1.4GiG files to and from it. I have had none of the problems that you seem to be mentioning.
Does this happen on all USB ports of your computer, or only one of them? If it happens on only one of the ports, it could be a motherboard issue. If it happens on all ports, it could be a driver issue. Tell us more about the motherboard make, and do a Google search for that motherboard name along with USB issues, Maybe something would turn up. Hope this solves your problems.
Use NTFS unless you need FAT32 for multi-OS compatibility issues. NTFS is a much better system, as it doesn't use a massive single file table...
So getting an external usb hub wouldn't change anything then?
Is there an easy way to update my USB drivers,or is that included in the Microsoft service packs??
The updates would not be in the service packs, at least as far as I know.
Updating your USB drivers would depend on your hardware. Right-click My Computer and click Manage. Then, select the Device Manager tab at the left. If you see anything that is a yellow questionmark or something with an exclamation mark on it, it is quite possible that your USB controller (or some other hardware) is not installed.
If you have any of the exclamation marks, then you need to figure out what motherboard you have and find drivers for it. Most of the time, the USB 2.0 drivers are integrated into the chipset drivers.
Either way, you should try to find out what your motherboard is (or what system you have if you ordered from Dell or an OEM manufacturer) so that we can find out if you have USB 2.0 support. If you don't, then you definitely want to get a PCI USB card. It will speed up the transfers and reduce or eliminate your errors.
Getting an external USB hub would be actually detrimental to the case since the power from a single USB port on the computer would be utlized to power all the ports on the hub, thereby aggravating the problem
