Windows 7 - USB Access problems

I am having on-going trouble with accessing usb devices. (Windows 7 Ult. not OEM). I have updated the bios on my Gigabyte MB (EP31-DS3L FC). The devices (including memory sticks and external hard drives) work fine on a Windows 7 Home Premium Lap Top on my home network. The exact problems are
1) Slow to recognise the devices in Explorer. Sometimes complete failure.
2) Failure when copying files to device - for example Windows backup 'stuck' for 2 days when copying files as part of backup (13% through the process). The device in this case is a 1TB Seagate drive, non-USB powered.
Any help appreciated

Hi hwb and welcome to SF!
You checked the box "Load default CMOS after BIOS update" as shown below. If not, reboot and hit DEL. Within the BIOS menu, select "load optimized defaults", hit F10 to save changes and reboot normally. Let us know the results.

Thanks for your suggestion. I am fairly sure that I had checked Load CMOS after Bios Update in the @Bios utility, but, to be sure, I followed your procedure, and set the Load Optimized Defaults option to 'Y' in the Bios, and rebooted. Unluckily it has made no difference. I checked the USD devices in Device Manager, and they all look OK (no Yellow warnings).
I saw a reference somewhere to deleting two files in System32 (disk.sys and partmgr.sys) to force Windows to reload them. Is this worth trying?

Do not delete them.
Reinstall chipset drivers. Download them here.

I installed the Intel Chipset updates. Seemed to go OK, and rebooted. Unluckily the only difference is that if anything access is even slower than before. Cant be sure of this of course. Device Manager says the Seagate Expansion drive is working normally. But Backup stalls at 12%. And just accessing the drive to check contents takes 10 to 15 minutes - or even longer, I started it at least 15 minutes ago and it has not completed.

Anything else I can try?

Thanks

Two suggestions:

1 - if you have another hard drive that is not in use, install Windows on it and see if the problem persists;

2 - after reading the FC update news, if you do not have any of the problems mentioned there, do the downgrade. But remember the Gigabyte warning:

1. No other hard drive available.
2. Not sure what the Gigabyte warning is. Have seen a reference to problems with a different Gigabyte MB EP45...), and the FC bios. But this wont affect me?

Unless you have any other suggestions, in the meantime I will attach the USB drive to the laptop on the network (Win Home Prem) where it works fine, and manually back up files to it. I cant get my Windows backup to work properly on the network. It copies everything to the drive, but then fails to complete, reporting an access error. Is this because the Laptop is Home Prem? (My PC is Win Ult). Sorry, one more question. Is upgrading to USB 3, and getting a new external drive, likely to fix these on-going issues?

If I dont hear from you in the next day or so I will assume nothing else to be done, and 'Rep'(?, not sure what this is) you for your very helpful efforts to fix my problems.
Thanks a lot

Hello hwb

Have you tried doing a check disk on the USB drive, place a tick in the box, Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors

If check disk does not help try this; USB Driver - General Fix for Problems[2]=Hardware%20and%20Drivers

If you can get a snip of the access error and post it here it maybe very helpful

You're welcome!

"Rep" means reputation. Every time you believe that the aid offered to you deserve it, just click on the scales on the upper right of this post and say why.

There are no problems in dealing with two different versions of Windows.

Basically an USB3 upgrade and an external HDD would only increase the transfer speed.

#1 rejoinder > Well, since you do not have another hard drive, doubt that I'd like to answer will only be possible when you have to format your PC. No problem anyway.

#2 rejoinder > As you can see in the picture below, unless you had wake up by LAN from S3 issue, and you're planning on overclocking, it wouldn't need a bios upgrade.

Thanks for the advice. My problem is that I can access the drive, and other usb drives, but the access is slow and intermittent, for example I can copy small files to them, but not large ones, and backup runs for a while and then stalls. Yet the drivers are reported to be OK.