USB HD Takes ages to copy

MunkyHed

Anyone had this problem before??


I tried to copy a 4.3GB ISO file to my USB HD. It was taking forever so i cancelled it. I then let it copy overnight and still the next morning it was stuck saying 13 mins left.
WTF!
I cancelled the copy but i noticed that the file that was supposed to be only partially copied over was the same size exactly as the original file, so has it copied over?? i'll try burning the DVD image tonight to see if it works.

I've a dell dimension system running XP and a USB HD - 20GB laptop drive in a 22 euro case bought fom Komplett.

Gryzor

are u using USB 2??

Standard Toaster

Is the USB drive formatted with FAT32 by any chance?
Will need to be NTFS if the iso is over 4Gb, which it is in your case.

MunkyHed

Ya i'm using USB2. The drive was formatted with FAT32, i reformatted to NTFS and the same happened, i brought the drive home and copied to another computer, the ISO image copied perfectly! strange but it seems that it worked.

RicardoSmith

Is the drive your copying it too (on the PC) NTFS or FAT32?

Superman

doesn't need to be NTFS mine works fine in FAT32, If you have the time and a spare hard disk (preferably a good one) put it in the USB box and try copying it over if the same happens it could be the controller on the USB box, same happened me when I used a box with an "Oxford 911 controller". I got a new box and the same drive copied no problem.
good luck

Mutant_Fruit

The problem is if he tries to copy a 4gig file onto (or from) FAT32 it will feck up. Fat32 does not like files over 2 gigs in size.

Hobbes

There was a scandal a couple of years ago where machines were being touted as USB2 when in fact it was only USB1.

I think 4.3GB is the limit for FAT32 afair. Even so it wouldn't make it go slow, it would just fail at the end.

I have a external HDD it is horribly slow on one of my machines which has USB1, the others its extremly fast on. I would say that is most likely your problem.

RicardoSmith

Sounds like a problem with USB2 ports on the PC really. Did you try it on another PC?

MunkyHed

I think it must be the USB ports on my machine, when i go into device manager and look at my USB devices, only one of them says that it is USB 2.0, the rest just say USB. Unfortunately I cannot install SP1 and upgrade the drivers for the ports. I've tried the drive In NTFS and FAT32 and the same problem persists. I don't have another drive to try at the moment but it works fine on my home PC which has SP1 installed.
Is there another way to upgrade from USB1 to 2 drivers without SP1?

pollyantic

i know it may be obvious, but chaeck are you using a USB2 cable

Hobbes

pollyantic wrote:

i know it may be obvious, but chaeck are you using a USB2 cable

???

Is there another way to upgrade from USB1 to 2 drivers without SP1?

They are both different types of hardware.

jor el

MunkyHed wrote:

Unfortunately I cannot install SP1 and upgrade the drivers for the ports.

Why? Is it a work/college computer? If so you're probably goosed.

Is there another way to upgrade from USB1 to 2 drivers without SP1?

Not unless you add a PCI USB2 card, which you probably can't do either because of the above I guess.

If you know one of the ports is USB2 then maybe just plug it into each port in turn to identify the fast one, or find out which is the fast one some other way.

MunkyHed

pollyantic wrote:

i know it may be obvious, but chaeck are you using a USB2 cable

Ya, as i said before, this drive works as its sposed to on my home computer with nice speeds.

jor el wrote:

Why? Is it a work/college computer? If so you're probably goosed.

Work computer. Goosed indeed.

rsynnott

pollyantic wrote:

i know it may be obvious, but chaeck are you using a USB2 cable

They're the SAME. As are the ports. Only the controler hardware is different... A few systems do have both flavours; give the ports on the back of the system a go. Beyond that, it could be a BIOS or driver issue. Or just a plain dodgy USB interface (you get them)

Ciaran500

USB2.0 drivers only come with SP1. Its not a bios/hardware issue.

RicardoSmith

Why can you not install SP1 or SP2 for that matter?