I recently had to do an operating system restore on my computer. My external drive, a 500 GB model, worked fine until after the restore. Now the connection cuts off intermittently, especially when I try to access a file or program on the drive. The connection stays off from about 5 seconds to about a minute, then turns back on. I have checked the USB connections in Device Manager but it shows the connections are operating fine. I have tried connecting the drive to a different USB port and have temporarily disconnected other external drives, but the problem remains. It has gotten frustrating, especially since I relocated Ny Documents onto the drive before the restore and every time I try to save or otherwise access a file on My Documents, the drive disconnects. I have Windows XP Media Center Edition with Service Pack 3 and six USB 2.0 connections on my computer.
Hello,
Have you try a different USB cable? How about a different computer?
I tried a different cable but the same thing happens. I do not currently have access to another computer. As I said, my drive worked fine until after I had my Windows XP OS restored. The connection problems started right after I reconnected the drive to my computer after the restore.
I had something scary later today. My drive disconnected, once again when I tried to save a file onto it, then shortly a “Found New Device” window popped up when Windows reconnected. The window then instructed me to install a driver, which I prompted it to do. It took about a minute for the driver to install, but afterward the My Book drive disconnected again. It then reconnected but Windows would not detect the drive. I went to Device Manager and checked the USB devices and found one with a yellow “X”, which stated that the drive was disconnected through “Safely Remove Hardware”. It instructed me to physically disconnect the USB cable, then reconnect, which I did. After reconnecting the cable, I heard the sound that connection was made, but Windows would not recognize the drive. I checked Device Manager again, and there was a USB connection shown with a yellow “X” again. I disconnected the cable AND the power cord and kept them disconnected for about a minute before reconnecting. Nothing happened this time. I ended up rebooting my computer, which finally, five minutes after the reboot completed, the My Book drive reconnected and Windows recognized the drive. I am now afraid to do anything on the drive for fear of permanently losing it.
