BleepingComputer.com: Sign of Trouble?

I have a micronet external harddrive that I have used for several years to backup my laptop. In the past few days it has begun to lose its connection. I will start the backup process and, after a short period of time, I will get a failure message saying that the external device is no longer there. The hard drive will reconnect moments later.

Is this a sign of problems with the harddrive? I would think so.

I would take a look..in Event Viewer...for any errors which mention "hard drive" or "hard disk" or "IDE".

A double-click on any line item in Event Viewer...provides more details for that item.

If you find such error or errors in Event Viewer, post the detail of such in your next post.

How To Use Event Viewer - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic40108.html

Generally, the first thing to check should be the connections to and from the system...when situations such as yours occur.

Louis

The problem happened again today with a new external harddrive that I bought today. I think the problem may be with the laptop and not the external drive. there was a lot of info in event viewer. Here is one message from event viewer:

"The program Explorer.EXE version 6.0.6002.18005 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: ddc Start Time: 01cad1fa96c5e020 Termination Time: 60000"

Could this be the problem?

How about some detail on the last five errors in Event Viewer...which might correlate to your hard drive posited problem?

In addition to the criteria I previously spelled out...I would be on the lookout for USB errors, if you connect these drives via USB.

I would also go to Device Manager and uninstall the USB controllers (not devices) and then reboot and allow same to reinstall.

Many Vista users seem to have this problem, with lots of banter about it, but nothing conclusive that I can see.

If I saw that explorer.exe was crashing on my system...I'd run sfc /scannow or do a repair install of XP...after I had done the preceding suggestions with no joy.

Louis

Errors from Event Viewer >Windows Logs>System. Do you need errors from applications, too? These are errors only not information events.


First error: 4/5/2010 9:43 VDS Dynamic provider

The provider failed while storing notifications from the driver. The Virtual Disk Service should be restarted. hr=80042505

Second Error 4/5/2010 9:18
Same as first error

Third Error 4/5/2010 8:01
Same as first two errors

Fourth error 4/5/2010 7:45
Same as first three errors

Fifth error 4/5/2010 7:01
Same as above

So what is the VDS Dynamic Provider and could it affect copying from laptop to external drive?

Going back to about the last time I tried to copy from the laptop to the external drive there are several warning events reading "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1 during a paging operation." Could this be related to the copying to the external drive?

Thank you!

I deleted and reinstalled all USB controllers and tried to copy from the laptop to the external drive again. Same result as before.

FWIW: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948275

Louis

Thank you. I followed the advice above about turning on VDS. However, the problem in copying from laptop to external drive continues. This time I noted the error message:

Error: 0x80070037 The specified network resource or device is no longer available.

Immediately thereafter the autoplay began to run like it does when I first connect the external drive to the laptop. I think there must be something wrong with the USB. Any other ideas?

Thanks.

Error: 0x80070037 The specified network resource or device is no longer available.

Well, your external hard drive can only be a network device if it's attached to a different system on a home network...or you have one of those drives which has been set up as a network shared device on a home network.

So, I don't follow that message appearing at all.

What's the model of this drive, please?

Error: 0x80070037 doesn't really seem to have a clear explanation of what it might be. I think I'd take a look in Event Viewer again for something that might correlate to timing of onscreen error messages.

Louis

I looked at Event Viewer again. The only error message is the VDS message again. There are a lot of information messages and a couple of warning messages that read: "The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur."

could that be the issue?

If you are still getting errors re VDS, I think you need to do something about it.

Generally, warnings and info items are...info items or system status checks in Event Viewer. You can look up the specific warning, using Google, and I think you'll see what I stated is correct.

Louis

Louis -

Thanks again for your continuing help. What is VDS? Could it be affecting the copying from laptop to external drive?

Silly me. I plugged the external drive into a different USB port and it worked. So the problem is obviously with one particular USB port. How should I proceed to repair it?

There are only two basic ways of dealing with USB problems that I know of (aside from reinstalling drivers for USB devices attached):

a. Go to Device Manager and uninstall the USB controllers (not devices) and then reboot and allow same to reinstall.

b. Install a PCI USB 2.0 or 3.0 card, which circumnavigates use of onboard USB.

Louis

Thanks for your help Louis. It is appreciated.