500GB External Freezes Computer

[bjohnson38]

   

I've recently had troubles with my external harddrive.  It works fine to open the files on it, but if I try to transfer files onto it or off of it, it will freeze my computer.

If the files are small, perhaps just a few megs, it works fine.  But when it is any substantial sized file it will work at first, but will eventually freeze; usually after about 10-20 seconds.  Is there any particular reason it is doing this?  What can I do to fix it?

Thanks a lot for any help you can offer!

[Kameran]

Your device is probably in fat32 which has a file cap of 4gigs.  You can format the drive to ntfs if your on a windows machine, or on a mac you can go to mac os extended and that should allow you to put whatever size files on it you want.

 

For the PC: right click on "computer" or "my computer"

 

For the Mac:  Go to Utilities and then "disk utility".

 

From either place from there should should be able select the drive and format to whatever you want for your application.  Please backup your data first because everything will be deleted from the drive to reformat it.

[bjohnson38]

   

I reformatted my HD when I first got it to NTFS, so that is not the issue.  The only problem is that transferring files freezes my computer; this problem began about 2-3 weeks ago.  Before then everything was fine.  What would make file transfers freeze?

[PCPiranha]

What OS are you using?  Also is it a desktop or laptop?

[bjohnson38]

   

I'm using Windows XP Professional on a notebook computer.  I've had it since 2005.  It is a Dell Inspiron 9300.

[PCPiranha]

Make sure the computer is plugged into an outlet and not just running off of the battery.  Also what service pack is it?

[bjohnson38]

   

I pretty much always run off an outlet.  It is service pack 3.  It has worked fine for a long time; then one day I'm trying to copy some stuff onto it and it started to do it fine, then the finish time started getting much larger and eventually it just froze.  When I cancel the download it doesn't stop right away, and eventually my desktop starts to disappear.

[bjohnson38]

   

Could this be some sort of indication that my external might be failing? or is it more likely a software issue?

[MasterPo]

   

My drive behaves the same way...still trying to figure out how to resolve it.

[bjohnson38]

   

Anyone else have some ideas?

[PCPiranha]

Sorry, didn't get an email for this post for some reason (up until now).  How large are these files/ transfers?  I doubt its an indication of HDD failure, but I guess it's possible.

[bjohnson38]

   

It seems to vary.  I'm able to make transfers about 100 mb and less with no problem; essentially anything that can copy over in just a few seconds.  When it comes to the copy taking 20-30 seconds or more it is ok for a little, then it just stops copying completely (or rather the finish time blasts up) and my computer then freezes up.  I haven't tried any large copies in a while, just small things which is fine.

[PCPiranha]

How full is the unit to capacity?

[bjohnson38]

   

There is still probably 30-50 gb left or so.  Definitely a lot of space still.

[bjohnson38]

   

I have just tried using my external on my friends computer and it works fine with no problems.  So now the question is, what on my computer is causing the interference when I try to copy things onto or off the external?