USB to SATA conversion cable: Drive is not recognized when copying large files

[d4j0n]

I have a 3.5" SATA to USB conversion cable (it was cheaper than a usb external hard drive) and for some reason, everything works fine when I move files onto the drive or if I view files from the drive, but when I try to copy files onto my computer (larger than 30 megs or so), the drive stops and windows shows a popup balloon in the taskbar saying it cannot recognize the usb device because it has malfunctioned. The drive works again if I re-plug in the usb cable but still does the same dance when I try to copy large files.

Things I've tried:
-all other usb ports on my laptop
-running without a laptop power cable
-running a scandisk on the drive from my laptop, the "usb device has malfunctioned" happens at the start of phase 4, verifying the filesystem or something
-removing all my usb drivers and device drivers in safe mode and reinstalling them (hubs and host controllers)
-adding a DisableSelectiveSuspend DWORD set to 1 in my regedit under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/usb

Oddly enough, this problem only occurs on my laptop and copying files from the drive works fine on my desktop.

My laptop is a new dell insiron e1505
-winxp media center edition sp2
-usb 2.0
Hard drive:
250gb, on its own AC power.

Edit: Problem occurs also when I'm playing certain video files from the drive for a minute or so or if I skip around on them alot. Some are fine, some aren't...this whole thing is very inconsistent.

[Ferrit]

I am not sure but you may be overloading the ports on the laptop. I have seen something like this before.
You may have to run it through a powered hub

[d4j0n]

it's the only thing usb that's plugged in though. Is there any way to allow a higher power consumption on the usb port the drive connected to?



If I were to get a usb powered hub though, is there a difference between
1. self powered or ac power
2. just self powered

Are all hubs that have AC power capabilities the same?

[Ferrit]

i would assume all seperate power supply powered hubs are the same

[d4j0n]

I guess I'll keep that in mind...hopefully its not a hardware problem, but that does seem plausible since the desktop works fine. Is there a real difference between desktop usb power and laptop usb power? That seems really weird...

Can anyone offer some kind of settings I can change or am I out of luck?

[NooNoo]

Is there power to the drive itself? Or is there only a connection to the drive from the usb cable? No power directly to the drive may cause this problem.

[d4j0n]

No, the drive has its own AC power source...usb power no way can power a 3.5" desktop drive XD

[NooNoo]

Is usb set to power down when idle? You'll find the setting in the properties for USB

[d4j0n]

well i disabled the thing that says "allow windows to turn off this device to save power" if you're talking about that...didn't help.

[NooNoo]

OK, let's get back to chkdsk... if you run chkdsk without any parameters, what does it report?

[d4j0n]

Hard to say...the now it keeps malfunctioning shortly into the chkdsk no matter if I'm using parameters or not. I don't think it's a problem with the drive because it works fine on my desktop via usb or sata.

[NooNoo]

so therefore the cable is suspect. Try another drive with the cable, if you get the same result then the cable is bad.

[CCT]

This is just general info:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832430

[d4j0n]

Wait, so this is saying that usb transfer sizes are limited? What about normal external usb hard drives?

[NooNoo]

Limited yes... but 30MB is well within the limits. Very large means 2gigs and over.