Lost bits when transfering to external hdd!?

[themaster1]

I bought an external hdd (Seagate FreeAgent 500gb) USb2 only 4 months ago

At first there was no biggie, but slowly it became a pain to copy files into this unit.

The file are ok in my internal Hdd and once copied there are missing parts.
Note that the usb cablei use is brand new (it was sold with the hdd), so i don't suspect this.

If i take a video file it can be easily spotted (blocks on the images)
see here: video copied on external hdd

I was wondering if partitioning this hdd would help i guess yes but i'm not so sure.

Also note that this problem occurs generally on videos from 140 Mb and upper, under there is not or rarely.

So clearly, the size of the file matters from what i can judge.

Your opinion is welcomed

[hunter99]

The file are ok in my internal Hdd and once copied there are missing parts.

Not to worry, that's not what happened, if it did you would have gotten a error message on Xfer.

Most likely there is a bottleneck on the USB2 bus or Hub. Its not feeding your video card fast enough.
Try a different USB port on your computer, make sure it is marked as USB2 (usually a + sign).
Some have a mix of 1, 1.1, and 2. The 2 is the HS.


Good Luck, Hunter99

[Bjs]

Do a before and after

A known good clip on pc's main hd and play it there, repeat test after clip has been copied to external

If the issue only appears from external, then you have a bottle neck during the transfer between devices, also confirm the type of clip involved, for all anyone knows, you could be trying to play a wmvhd clip.

If the issue appears on both sides of the test, you might have an issue with codecs, and or video graphics (always update).

Note you should be careful with these units as the power input plug is anything near perfection, try keeping the unit and cables on level surface so as to minimize cable obstruction and bends. Thats the only real issue I have with the one I bought.

If after all the above tests fail to determine the cause, I would suggest you backup anything you want to keep, and do a FULL repartition and format of the drive, and disable power saving features while this is in motion, it will take some time to complete.

[guns1inger]

We have been using freeagent drives and have about 12 in play currently. 2 of these have displayed problem behavior - bad copies, refusing to be read and other issues. Once they are re-formatted they seem to settle down - for a while - but they certainly do not seem as portable and robust as the Western Digital USB drives.

[Poppa_Meth]

The enclosure is junk on these things. Any premade generally has issues with the enclosure itself. I have several Seagate drives in AMS Venus enclosures and zero issues to date.

[SLK001]

That is the price you pay for external hard drives. Every transfer is required to sacrifice 1 bit per 100,000 to the External Hard Drive gods. These bits are gone forever.

[themaster1]

We have been using freeagent drives and have about 12 in play currently. 2 of these have displayed problem behavior - bad copies, refusing to be read and other issues. Once they are re-formatted they seem to settle down - for a while - but they certainly do not seem as portable and robust as the Western Digital USB drives.

Wow that's exactly what i was affraid of!
I'm gonna bring it to where i bought, the only matter being i lost the bill.Though, i'm a good client there maybe there is a solution....hopefully!

I bought this HDD because it's had good feedback on the net and apparently seagate is one of the best brands regarding hdd's so i thought it was a go-go and actually, 4 months later, i can certify it's a no-go.

I did an extensive analysis with the very same frame original/copy last week , no need to go further something's wrong with it.

But my question was about partionning this unit because if i refer to the infos i have gathered, windows has troubles with sizes above 140 Gb (roughly) maybe that's the core of the matter.

This Hdd was "good to go" when bought, formatted in NFTS already, 1 big partion (465Gb)


Thanks for your inputs guys

[neomaine]

themaster1,

Have you copied it to the external and then back to the source hd? Try this and see if the file still plays fine on the second copy. If so, it means the external is fine and is simply have bandwidth problems - which could be the usb hub, the port, the cable, little/no cache on the external, slow external (can't keep up with bit rate)...

Why people think they can get similar/same response times from external drives is beyond me.

[SLK001]

But my question was about partionning this unit because if i refer to the infos i have gathered, windows has troubles with sizes above 140 Gb (roughly) maybe that's the core of the matter.

This isn't true. You might have to set a registry key, but that is all that is needed for versions of Windows > Win2000 SP3. IIRC, XP versions have it set by default.

Do a search on "137GByte" limit on Microsoft's site (or Google)... or even here - it's been discussed here before.

[TimA-C]

What version of Windows are you using? (are you even using Windows?) Is your computer an off-the-shelf one or made for you? Have you got the drive plugged into one of the USB sockets at the back of the computer or one of the front sockets? Have you got any other USB devices plugged in at the same time? Assuming that you're using Windows and are downloading at least some updates, do you ever manually run Windows Update and get any updated hardware drivers or do you only run the auto updates? How many background processes are running? Does your antivirus scan each file as it's accessed? etc...

There are many reasons why you may be having problems and most of them aren't the external hard drive. The more info about your system you can give the more likely you are to get the problem solved. Fortunately there are a lot of very nice, knowledgeable people on this forum so I'm sure someone will be able to get you sorted. Good Luck!

[themaster1]

I've got windows xp sp2 using the front panel ports mainly but i tried the rear ones as well at first as i know they are suposed to be safer.Guess what: all wrong.

According to my observations the work this HDD does is similar to playing at the lottery.

Today i tried to copy a couple of files some were ok, some weren't at all, some were ok the first time, some were ok after transfering like 2,3 times,i can never be certain and that's not funny.

Note that i have unhooked every single device that use usb (especially my modem) before transfering (though not the mouse & keybord indeed)

For the guys that need pictures ,here they are (before/after):

before:

after:

[SLK001]

As has been said here, if there were copy errors, it would not have been copied.

If you are trying to play this video from the USB drive, the pixelation is from the USB stream not being able to keep up with the video demand.

If you're really curious, run a file compare on both the file on the USB drive and on your main system drive. In case you're not computer literate, it is done by:
1) Start > Run
2) Enter "cmd.exe".
3) Type "fc c:\myfile1.vid e:\myfile2.vid".

You will find that the compare will find no differences, so the two files are identical.

[themaster1]

Looks like some people won't understand.

If i copy back the file to the internal hdd i still have the problem so that mean the file is fucked up.

It's not a problem of bandwitdh,streaming or whatever and by the way i know this problem of bandwitdh, i've experienced it in a recent past.

So please, check your book.

Thanks for your opinion though

[edDV]

If it is a data stream you can have loss. If it is a file (packet verified) copy under the OS, then it won't copy unless all the packets are received without error.

Some stream transfer software report loss of full frames but few report lost pixels.

[poisondeathray]

You are still under warranty period; RMA it.