Other External products

[ancalangar]

Hey, as you can imagine, I've got a problem with my new Maxtor External Harddrive.

If I don't use it for a while it switches to some kind of idle state, but the problem is that, that it isn't possible to get access to the datas wich are on it because if I want to, my notebook tells me, that this file doesn't exist respectively "an error accured, data loss on I:\" .. for example.

So I want to know if it is possible to turn this off or to do something against that, because I don't want to restart my computer every hour (otherwise it isn't possible to  recover access to it)

Yours faithfully

ancalangar

Besides: I think it's not the "normal" idle state, because that happens after about 10 minutes if I don't use it....

Is it possible that that is a problem with WinXP?

[jgkromme]

Hello ancalangar,

I have exactly the same problem with a 1,5Gb Basics Maxtor disk in Vista: it works normal, after a certain time is goes into a sort of idle state and is not accessible anymore. The system can still see the disc, but after trying to access it says:

no data, do you want to format the drive!

Only after removing the power and reconnecting the power while Windows is running, the drive does act again as normal.

There is a sort of default timeout of 15 minutes after which the drive goes into an kind of idle state; not necesarely the idle state above, but it may have a relation with that. I am now looking at a solution to change the default timeout from 15 minutes to never with the Freeware/Desk software to prevent going in idle state.

The problem can be forced by booting your PC, while the Maxtor is already powered. If the Maxtor is powered after the startup then everything is OK.

My problem is how to start up the PC with access to the Maxtor already powered!

Message Edited by jgkromme on 03-12-2009 03:09 AM

[jgkromme]

Hi all,

Surfing through all the forums there seems to be a large common problem, on a lot of places there are serieus complaints about drives not accessible anymore and messages like:

"The disk in drive F is not formatted

Do you want to format it now"

What is Seagate doing about this problem?:

Nothing, the problem is not even mentioned in the FAQ, let alone supplying a solution for it!!!

I hope someone from Seagate is reading this message and is concerned about the quality of support of Seagate.

[ancalangar]

I came to the same solution...  next time maybe I should buy a WesternDigital HardDrive ..

[Hamartolos]

Right-click on Computer

Choose Manage

Go to Device Manager

Go to Universal Serial Bus Controllers

Double-click on the first USB Root Hub

Look in Power tab - is the device you're looking for connected there?

If not, do the next Root hub until you find it.

If so, go to Power Management tab

Uncheck the box "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

Does that help?

[ancalangar]

Thy for the reply, but no, doesn't help...

[Nagauta]

Was that solution for XP, Vista or both OS?

---

Addition:

I just finished testing your solution; switched "power saver" off, left the drive on and walked away for

(at least what seemed) 10 minutes; came back and it seemed to work fine. The test was for Vista, but still believe it would

work for XP also, under the correct circumstances.

BTW, I'm surprised with how many mAs it actually uses compared to some of the other devices on my computer right now.

---

Regards,

Nagauta

Message Edited by Nagauta on 03-17-2009 08:15 PM

[ancalangar]

I've linux and windows running on my computer, and it doesn't works on either of them.

[RoyVisser]

Hi Guys,

just install this little piece of software provided by Seagate themselves:

Seagate/Maxtor Drive Manager

(doesnt work on 64bit systems though) It lets you choose the time for your drive to go idle, you can set it yourselves with 15min intervalls from 0 tot 6 hours, or NEVER even. Works perfect with Basics drives, ive got 4 1Tb drives now going idle after more then 2 hours of not using them

 hope it works perfect for you to (btw i found this link myself by using google which brought me to a post in this forum, registered to help you out a bit, good luck!)