USB External Drives crash computer; Computer works fine without

[stuartn]

I've got exactly the same problem as DarkMatt although I haven't tried booting in safe mode. I'd been using Buffalo USB hard drives for some time with no problem. They were permanently plugged in and worked fine. A few months ago I bought a new 2TB drive and soon after my PC crashed and rebooted, etc.

My PC now crashes frequently whenever I plug in a drive (old or new). The weird thing is that it sometimes works for hours, sometimes crashes after a few minutes and sometimes reboots continuously until I disconnect the drive.

The only things that have changed since I bought the new drive were the installation of the drive software which includes turbo usb, turbo pc etc and a new graphics card after my old one died.

I find it interesting why you would recommend a reinstall of the graphics driver. Why that particularly?

I don't think there's anything physically wrong with the drives or that a virus is involved. Seems to me its corrupt drivers or bad drive software.

My main fear is crashing the PC so much that I corrupt windows to the point of no return.

But Im sure I have exactly the same problem

[DarkMatt]

Well, taking out the sound card didn't do anything. I lasted a good hour before it started happening again.

I'm noticing something, my computer seems to be unable to dump some crash errors and just immediately reboot. It'll dump the crashes I get during bootup, but it doesn't seem to dump the random crashes while operating anymore.

[stuartn]

I'm pretty sure we have the same problem or at least the same root cause.

What make and what size of drive are you using?

I had been using Buffalo USB drives for about a year with no problem. Then I used a 2TB drive and ever since have had issues with all of them.

Up till now I thought the drive was simply too big for XP to handle properly. But your post has got me thinking. My gut feeling is that its the Hard Drive drivers and I'll try reinstalling all of those.

One thing I seem to notice is that the PC is more likely to crash when its being worked hard as in copying files, playing movies, etc. Have you found that? In my case there is a direct correlation most of the time but not all (although something could be running in the background that I don't know of).

I don't have to be necessarily using the drive at the time just only for it to be connected

Is there any way to check on the load just before yours crashes? I somehow feel that the drives are making the cpu overwork and the pc to crash. That would explain why it goes at seemingly random times.

[DarkMatt]

Actually, I have went and completely uninstalled my graphics driver. So far, so good.

...This is going to really sting if my computer stays on for a day.

[Hockson]

Actually, I have went and completely uninstalled my graphics driver. So far, so good.

...This is going to really sting if my computer stays on for a day.

So, removing or uninstalling the graphics driver worked for you? If not then you can keep us updated and we will def. try to solve your issue. Another thing I remember is that, this issue is also cause by installing Norton Antivirus in the computer. So, if you have installed it then try to disable the auto-protect feature of Norton AntiVirus 2001 in the startup group. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Restart your computer in Safe mode.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type msconfig, and then click OK.
4. Click Selective startup.
5. On the Static VxD tab, click to clear the NAVAP.VxD check box,and then click OK.
6. On the Startup tab, click to clear the Norton Auto Protect check box, and then click OK.
7. Restart your computer in Normal mode.

@ stuartn: can you also let us know the make/model of your computer? Have you scanned your pc with some antivirus software, just in case if it is infected? Do you come accross any error codes, that you can post here, so that we can diagnose it?

[DarkMatt]

What's Norton Antivirus?

I don't have that installed. In fact, this has been working fine. (although it just feels like safe mode with sound.) That is, until I plugged in my USB drive, which crashed on the spot. I swear, the moment it powered on, my computer broke, and rebooted for quite a bit and crashed a couple times, some during bootup, once after it has booted up. But right now it appears to be fine.

...Okay, it'll be awhile before I can conclude that I've managed to cut enough out of my computer to get it into working order, so for the time being, let's guesstimate. I don't think a processor can break when an additional piece of hardware is inserted in, (Although technology sure is mysterious.) but what about the motherboard? Is the problem within the board itself or is it due how the power supply works? Can we attribute "Stripped PC crashing due to USB device being plugged in" to a power supply problem? Is there a clue within what I've reported that would point us in the right direction without making anything else sound plain looney?

Long story short, my computer, after losing an eighth in the form of a sound card, a graphics card driver, and all USB hard drives, appears to be able to stay running. (Course, only time can confirm this.)

[DarkMatt]

Okay. I shut down my computer before going to bed, and it did this...which it has done before:

-It immediately shut down the first time I tried turning it on.
-It could not boot XP. It would crash somewhere along the line at startup. It could still boot into Safe Mode.
-Unfortunately, no crashes were logged when it crashed about 5 times.

-However, here's an interesting bit. When I run SpeedFan in Safe Mode sometimes it displays "Bad Attributes Checksum ($CF)" and "Bad Thresholds Checksum ($CF)". Other times, it won't. Any of you know what those mean?

Once I get it to boot up in normal mode, I'll see if I can go the entire day without a crash.

[Actionguy]

There is possibility that the SpeedFan can obtain the voltages incorrect on some systems. You can see the startup log and see if that can help you other than this one more thing that you can do to compare them is go in to the bios and observe if the voltages it shows are comparable.

[stuartn]

My PC is a custom made one using an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard with an Intel core i7 2.66Ghz processor. My memory is Corsair DDR 1333 3x 1GB. I have three internal hard drives - all Seagate (2 x 500GB and 1 TB). Do you need any further info?

I have scanned my PC and there are no viruses.

I'd be happy to log any events but I'm not sure how to do that. The crashes when they happen are sudden and out of the blue. Sometimes I get a BSD with a memory dump message but more often than not the PC will just crash and reboot. It may try to reboot three or four times before it eventually gets through. If that;'s being logged where would I find it?

With the external drives disconnected the computer works totally normally and never crashes etc.

Cheers

[DarkMatt]

I am picking up a new fan within a couple of days, as a close friend of mine said it was heat issues and safe mode could run fine since it didn't force the processor to do backflips while it's a tad broken.

Now, whether or not this will magically solve all my problems, we'll see.

Also, this is just stabbing in the dark. This problem, unfortunately, has no obvious solution. I've accepted that. It's horrible.

[Delaware]

There may be some problem with the USB driver that is installed in your computer and that is the reason that you are facing the problem like this. This is the first thing that you need to check first in the cases like this. Update the driver with the latest available and see if that is able to solve this issue. I hope that this will work for you.

[stuartn]

Ive gone through the PC with a fine tooth comb to find any viruses, upgraded the USB drivers but I still have the same problem.

The first time I reconnected a hard drive, the computer was fine for ten minutes then crashed. It then tried rebooting four or five times but crashed each time until getting though only to crash again. If I disconnect the hard drive the computer is fine.

I've tried different hard drives, different USB slots, front and back but I get the same problem. No warning, the computer just beeps and tries to reboot.

The only thing I'm a bit suspicious of is the software that came with the new buffalo drive: turbo usb; eco manager, secure lock, ram disk, turbo copy, turbo pc, and disk formatter. I was using turbo usb before and the drives never crashed but having gone to the buffalo website they said a lot of this other stuff is currently only available on new drives and not yet for public download. This would suggest that these are beta software packages and potentially unstable?

I guess I should uninstall them all and see what happens next.

[Hockson]

Hi stuartn,

Do you have much saved on that external hard drive?? If so formatting it is not the way to go. What you can do is go to run and type "mmc" then from file "add in snap" add disk management.. and see what details you see for the external hard drive from there. Try to run an elevated command prompt and use the 'chkdsk' feature to scan and repair bad blocks in your HDD.

[stuartn]

I have a number of drives (all Buffalo) and tried interchanging them. I still got the same problem so obviously it wasn't the hard drives.

Anyway I removed all the Buffalo software that came with the drive and so far my computer has not crashed. I can access the drive, copy and write to it etc and it's fine.

On reflection I should have removed the Buffalo software first but I forgot I had it installed.

One or more of these is messing up my computer. A couple of them, like USB Turbo, seem to be very useful so I think the next step is to install them one at a time and see what happens.

I need to get back to Buffalo and tell them there's a bug in their software. Will they listen? I doubt it.

Dark Matt, you seemed to have a similar problem to mine. I think all these drives come with similar software. Did you install any applications? Or maybe the software installed itself when you connected the drive? It looks like you've exhausted all the hardware options

[stuartn]

Hi Hockson,

Even though I think the drives are ok I will run a chkdsk if for no other reason than to test out your process.

But it's important that they are in good condition. I use one drive for backing up the computer which I obviously want it to do automatically, and have others connected for storing films, music, etc which I can stream direct to my TV.

The chief issue when the computer crashed was I had to unplug the drives so the backup software wouldn't work without me confirming the location of the archives or it would crash anytime and have to start again. Streaming videos was also impossible - nothing worse than trying to fix a technical problem halfway through a film!

I'll try and find what bit of software is causing the problem and let everyone know just in case. And I still have to test whether I can have two or three drives connected at the same time. But before then I need to back up my pc.