Re: USB disk fails when accessed after idle for some hours
On Thursday 29 January 2009 18:52:08 Reid Priedhorsky wrote:
> ClamAV 0.94.2 signatures .
>
> All,
>
> I have a USB disk (a 320GB Western Digital My Passport) which is
> exhibiting the following problem.
>
> When first hooked up and mounted, it works fine. I've successfully
> transferred 100's of GB onto the disk.
>
> However, if left idle for some hours, it fails when accessed, with a
> spontaneous USB disconnect and reconnect of the device (log excerpts
> below).
>
> Some hours later, it still gives immediate I/O errors when accessed (e.g.
> with ls), but unmounting and re-mounting the drive makes it work again.
> (It might have also needed a physical unplug and re-plug once, but I don't
> recall for sure.)
>
> It is a 2.5" disk with no external power supply, just power from USB. This
> happens in multiple port group and multiple cables. I have another USB
> disk, this one a 3.5" IDE drive which I installed in a USB enclosure
> myself, that does have external power, that works with no problems.
>
> Now, the unmount/remount cycle suggests that I could perhaps work around
> the problem with automount. But, if the disk is just plain defective, I
> don't want to paper over the problem.
>
> I wonder if the computer can't provide enough power to run the device (it
> exceeds the 500mA/port limit, though that was NOT clear in the newegg
> description). However, if that's true, why does it only fail after a long
> idle?
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Many thanks in advance,
>
> Reid
This looks similar to a problem I have with a 500G Toshiba drive.
Have you tried this on a USB 1 port? does it do the same?
PS. I still don't know why mine dies. (at work I have a couple of 1Tb drives
that work fine on USB2)
--
Thank you,
Clifford W. Hansen
PHP Developer / Linux Administrator
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