External HDD Keeps Disconnecting Itself

[RealGem]

Anyone know why my external HDD keeps disconnecting itself?

It used to do it with my old PC, and I thought it was due to the slow processor, but the new one should be fast enough. Also, my other 120gb external HDD used to do it too, so I always thought it was my old PC's fault. But now that my new PC is doing it, I'm stumped.

When I first connected it to the new PC to upload the old PC's files (using SynbackSE), it stayed connected the whole time (several hours).

And I was never asked to format it.

Now it disconnects every few minutes, then when it reconnects, the usual popups appear and a request to format the disk.

Does anyone know how to solve this please?

thanks

 

[Maguscreed]

go into power options in the control panel.
change plan settings
then click change advanced
expand usb and check that Usb selective suspend is disabled.

This will at least cover it from the windows side of things.

 

[RealGem]

Brilliant - thanks a lot Maguscreed!

so there was nothing wrong with my old PC after all - (apart from being slow).

 

[rap33042]

My external HDD has a shutdown timer; it automatically shuts down after a certain period of inactivity.
This is inherent to the drive and I have found no solution to this annoyance.

I wish there was a way to set the timer for a longer period of inactivity.
I suppose a person could schedule a .bat file to "ping" it every 10 minutes, or so.

 

[Maguscreed]

that's why I use low power drives in my external devices it seems to prevent that from happening. Though I do still tend to use my NAS for files I just want accessible all the time. I typically leave the externals turned off until I need them for something specific.
I also think that eSATA compatible externals never power down.

 

[ruggb]

OK, I can't tell u how long I have searched for an answer. New Asus MB, dual front panel connection from on-board connector next to power plug - plug in USB3 external with long cable - drive disconnects and reconnects on long file xfers. Short files do not create the issue. Short (1') cables seem to work.

So I [FONT=&quot]set USB Selective Suspend setting, Setting: = [/FONT]Disabled


It copies fine drive to computer. Computer to drive instead of 5-15% copy b4 fail it got to 40% for a 35GB file on 1st try, then aa 2nd try was successful.

Rear MB seemed to be good without change.

Now to try other combos.[FONT=&quot][/FONT]