Why my external HD takes so long to be recognized?

[DroogieX]

Hello, I just got an external USB HD enclosure like this one:

http://www.dealsonic.com/sabl35inslal1.html

(i didn't bought it there, the link is just to show the photo), I installed on it a 250GB western digital caviar HD and my problem is that when I connect it to my laptop it takes 1 and a half minutes for windows xp pro to recognize it, the weird thing is that when I put a 120GB western digital HD on that same enclosure windows inmediatelly recognizes it, also, if I put the 250GB HD on another USB enclosure I have there's no problem at all and windows recognizes it inmediatelly too, the enclosure specs says it can supports up to 300GB HDD so I wonder if it's faulty, after it's recognized with the 250GB HD it seems to be no problems, even if I disconnect it from the USB port without powering down after I plug it back it's recognized inmeadetelly by windows again, only when I turn off the power it takes again 1 and a half minutes to appear

Any suggestions besides returning the enclosure?

 

[jlindenbaum]

Hi,


NOTE: I am not a Hard drive professional, this is just a good guess.

If you Power off the USB devices are shutdown by XP, or stopped. When you power on again, it would take a while for your laptop to a) power on the USB and b) read it's content and folder hierarchy into the computer's cache. And because the drive is 250GB over USB (1.1 or 2.0? You didn't say) it takes longer than it would over IDE or S-ATA. So once XP recognizes the drive and it's content is stored in a cache / RAM then you can access it faster.

Hope that is more or less right.

 

[garebo]

I think you may be able to fix that by right clicking on the drive and working in the properties section. Not getting into specifics as im not totally sure and also you get different settings with different chipsets on different enclosures.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[jlindenbaum]

Is that drive actually Hot Swapable?

I have been thinking of getting a USB 2.0 or 6-Pole FireWire drive.. but havn't heard of speeds or compatability

 

[garebo]

In my suggestion, above, i should have pointed out that the job was to prevent windows from reading and taking stock of the content of the drive before handing it over to you.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[DroogieX]

Yes, it's hot swapable and USB 2.0, the strange thing as I mentioned before is that the same 250GB HD is recognized inmediatelly if I put it on another USB2 external enclosure I have, also, if I put a 120GB HD on the new enclosure windows also recognizes it inmediatelly which makes me think that this new enclosure has issues with large drives even though the specs says it can support up to 300GB HD

 

[garebo]

Another thing i just realized when i just turned one on. That is autoplay. If you set autoplay to not work then windows wont take all the time to go thru the whole hard drive.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips