Problem with external HDD

[George Hallam]

Ok i have a 500Gb seagate external HDD full of media but lately it is reallllyyy slow to transfer files to

ie,

i have a movie folder which contains 100Gb (145 movies) but when i click the folder it takes over a minute to load it :confused:

the HDD 115Gb free (out of 500Gb)

i have disk defraged and used seagate software to check that the drive is not faulty

any ideas what is wrong, it has only just stated happening

Also, when i paste a file into any folder on the drive (large ones >350Mb) they copy fast matter of seconds then just as it finishes it hangs and the transfer window says not responding for 20 or so seconds

Edit: happened again

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll221/jiggyghallam/HDDproblem.jpg

[Paul Komski]

I would suspect the bus as much as the HDD. Is it possible to try the drive internally?

[George Hallam]

i would if i could take it to pieces :p

the drive itself has very few screws and is clipped together with those clips that one they are clipped they dont want to undo without breaking :rolleyes:. So unless it really stops working then i would take it apart.

So what do you think could be wrong?

Is it because it it nearly full?

[Paul Komski]

115GB of free space is hardly nearly full.

As long as it is in the drive (?USB) then you will not be able to discriminate between file i/o to the drive or data transfer along the USB/Firewire/eSata bus.

You could try another similar drive to ensure the port is OK or try other ports to see if that makes any difference.

Try running chkdsk X: /R (where X: is the partition in question) and when you have time on your hands because it will take some time (overnight maybe) to check the file system and data area for errors and to repair them if possible.

Then defrag again and then maybe, if the partition is FAT, consider converting it to NTFS if you are only going to access it from WinXP or similar.

[classicsoftware]

Not that this helps the OP, it just points out the danger of of buying a proprietary external hard drive. If you had assembled on your own, you would be able to figure out what is wrong.

[George Hallam]

i solved the problem,

when looking it loaded the file in question the CPU usage of both cores went to 100%, to i started task manager and saw the explorer was using it. It made me think it was just hard for vista to load that many files and such so i just reorganized them into A-L and M-Z simple yet effective :p

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll221/jiggyghallam/ExtreanlHDDsorted.jpg

Not that this helps the OP, it just points out the danger of of buying a proprietary external hard drive. If you had assembled on your own, you would be able to figure out what is wrong.

i see what your saying now, but if i was 99% sure it was a hardware problem i would take it out and break the case if need be to save all my lovely media :D