External Hard Drive Prevents Other Programs Opening

**Magnavark** · June 4th, 2008, 01:11 AM

Hello to you all.

I'm having a rather strange problem with my external hard drive. As of this morning, it worked perfectly fine with no hitches. The hard drive is a WD 1 TB MyBook that is less than 6 months old, and I'm running Windows XP. When I connect the drive, I hear the noise that indicates its connected and recognized by the computer. However, it doesn't show up in My Computer, and seems to block programs from starting up. For example, I was checking out a myriad of other solutions to problems that seemed similar to mine on this site, and they required me to open the registry editor. So I went to Start, Run, regedit, that whole shebang and the program didn't start. So I tried it again. And a third time. The registry editor never opened. I unplugged the hard drive from the USB port, and suddenly 3 instances of the registry editor opened up. I'm not sure what the issue is and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

**NooNoo** · June 4th, 2008, 03:06 AM

Welcome to Windrivers Magnavark

The first thing I would want to know is "Does the drive do that on another machine?"

What version of Windows XP are you running - have you installed SP3?

Do you use the "safely remove" icon before disconnecting the hard drive?

I believe some models of the myBooks come with ethernet connectivity or firewire as well - does yours? If so, do you get the same behaviour if you use ethernet or firewire to connect the drive?

**Magnavark** · June 4th, 2008, 11:37 AM

.

**Magnavark** · June 4th, 2008, 12:12 PM

Well, I don't know if the drive does that on another machine, seeing as I don't have another working computer in the house, but hopefully, I'll know within 12 hours, as I have a friend coming over with his laptop.

I'm running Windows XP SP2.

I don't use the 'safely remove' icon before disconnecting, because I rarely, if ever disconnect the drive.

The model of myBook that I own doesn't have firewire or ethernet, unfortunately.

Another little tidbit of information that you might find useful is the error message that popped up this morning after I plugged in the drive and left it alone for a good half hour.

"The specified I/O operation on \Device\Harddisk2\DR9 was not completed before the time-out period expired." along with three options. 'Cancel', 'Try Again', 'Continue'.

I'm not sure how long it actually took for that error message to come up, but it was there when I came back to the computer.

**CeeBee** · June 4th, 2008, 01:04 PM

See if the drive shows in the device manager but my instinct tells me it's gone.

**NooNoo** · June 4th, 2008, 04:08 PM

Backup the information that is on the drive NOW!

**PBase001** · June 5th, 2008, 10:19 AM

Search for <regedit.exe>. You'll want to make a copy of it and rename the copied version to <regedit.com>. I believe it should be in your Windows directory.

From Start-Run-type in regedit.com

It's common for ******** to target specific programs such as regedit.exe from running.

If regedit.com opens you've got a whole set of other problems you're going to have to worry about. But at least it should now open for you to do what you have to.

If that still don't work try Start-Run and type in regedt32

Your regedit.exe might be currupted.

<Edit:inserted>
I guess I should ask if regedit runs without the drive connected. :/

**Magnavark** · June 7th, 2008, 04:23 PM

Sorry it's taken me two days to reply, but here's the answers to all three of you.

CeeBee, the drive does not show up in the device manager.

NooNoo, the information on the drive was back up before this happened. I'm not worried about losing the information, I just want the drive to work again. Data is replaceable, a 1TB hard drive, not so much.

PBase001, regedit.exe, regedt32.exe and regedit.com all run perfectly fine without the drive connected. It's only when the drive IS connected that they don't. When the drive is connect, regedit.exe and regedit.com both run. regedt32.exe does not.

[Edit]
I just noticed something strange. Not sure if it's applicable or not, but it's worth pointing out. In my C:\Windows folder, I made a copy of regedit.exe named, predictably, "copy of regedit.exe." I also have a regedit.com. When I plugged in my drive and unplugged it, there was a new regedit.exe. So I deleted the new one, renamed the old one back to regedit.exe and plugged the drive back in. It created ANOTHER regedit.exe, although this one was named regedit.exe.tmp. I'm not sure what that's about, but it seems odd, possible correlation to the problem I'm having?

**NooNoo** · June 12th, 2008, 03:51 AM

I think you need to replace the regedit.exe file with the one from your OS disk

You can try SFC /SCANNOW in the run box to replace them automatically...