Windows Easy Transfer Hangs

October 22, 2008 7:41 PM

Windows Easy Transfer Hangs

I've got a new laptop for my business and I'm trying to use Windows Easy Transfer to move the files from one computer to another. I started out trying to use an external hard drive, but kept getting an error message that the size of the drive was too small. I then purchased the transfer cable recommended by Microsoft.

Now the program hangs. I did seem to have it working well for a moment, but I had to stop the process becuase I needed to access one computer for something. After I started the program again, it hung again. I did some searching on Google, but the results were less than helpful. It did seem like it the program is known to hang. I often get a weird symbol in the corner of the screen which shows a USB plug with a red "X" next to it. No explanation for the icon is given. Does it mean "do not disconnect the cable" or "the cable is no longer connected"? There's no dialog box to explain what that icon means.

I'm using Windows Vista Home on both machines. I have had a few problems with one of the hard drives malfunctioning, but it appears that is not the problem becuase I can still use the machine when I stop the transfer process and because I can still back up the whole computer to the external hard drive via a drag-and-drop copy.

If anyone could tell me what's wrong, and how to fix it, I'd really appreciate it.

posted by Ironmouth to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

1. Stopping the process mid-transfer could have corrupted some data, which could create a problem that wouldn't be readily apparent and cause crashes; are you trying to resume the transfer in the middle or are you deleting all the files and starting over from scratch? Have you restarted both computers or are you still in the same session? (There may be bad data in the copy or in memory as a result of the pause.)

2. A malfunctioning hard drive could create problems that would affect one transfer program and not the other, particularly if they're trying to sync files -- for example, the backup program might be written to be resilient to bad data that chokes the transfer program. Can you do the transfer one portion at a time (a single folder, etc.) or does it lock up no matter what you do?

If anyone could tell me what's wrong, and how to fix it, I'd really appreciate it.

The cynical answer here is that you're using Vista. :) (Frankly, copying data should not be that hard.) The more serious answer is that an intermittent problem with hard drives -- based on what you're saying -- is going to be really hard to diagnose remotely and probably not worth the time: If it's a new computer, you should take advantage of initial support if they have it.
posted by spiderwire at 8:23 PM on October 22, 2008

Response by poster: It isn't a hard drive problem. All the forum posts on the internet indicate a similar problem.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:50 AM on October 23, 2008