BleepingComputer.com: Vista & External Hard Drive

Hello,
I am not sure if I am posting this in the right section as it is hardware related but linked to the OS BEING USED (Vista).

I am trying to use my portable external hard drive. It has been working fine since I bought it up until now. When I plug it into my laptop sometimes it will run fine until I try to copy something from my laptop over to my external hard drive or vice versa. At this point I always hear a little power down noise coming from the external hard drive (although the power light always remains on. This disconnects the external hard drive from the laptop making it inaccessible unless I unplug and plug back in. Other times it will not even show up and just sporadically does the power down noise (lasts for about half a second with the power light remaining on).

The reason that makes me believe this may be a software problem is that I have tried this with another laptop and a normal computer and the external hard drive works perfectly fine. If it is avoidable I would prefer a solution without involving formatting the drive as I have important information on there.

Thanks for any help

You could try uninstalling your USB controllers (not devices, not hubs) via Device Manager...then rebooting the system.

The controllers will reinstall automatically upon the reboot.

Louis