LaCie external drive not responding

July 1, 2005 6:50 AM

How can I access a non-responding folder on my LaCie 160GB external USB hard drive?

I have approximately 60gbs of files on this drive. I can access and work with every other folder on the drive except the one that is currently holding my ~45gbs of mp3 files. I can "open" the folder but the files never display and the folder and drive stop responding. I can then click the folder closed and the "end program" dialog box will appear and I close it that way. This happened once before and I cannot recall how I "fixed" it. Anyone else have this or similar problem, and ideally a solution?

If it matters I'm on Windows XP.

posted by FlamingBore to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

This may sound rather silly, but have you restarted the host machine? If there's a program running that's accessing the folder, it's possible that it could behave in this manner.

The other thing that causes this is your folder view- if there's a corrupted image or MP3 in the folder, Windows will sometimes hang while trying to read it. My guess is that if you tried it on another machine, or killed the offending process, it would work like a champ.
posted by fake at 6:55 AM on July 1, 2005

Response by poster: fake - I think the last time this happened I ended all extraneous processes. I should have mentioned that I tried that. I've also tried restarting, powering down the drive, etc.

I've brought the drive into work this morning and I'm about to try it on this machine.
posted by FlamingBore at 7:50 AM on July 1, 2005

I've had endless problems with Lacie hardware. They sell good-looking, affordable crap. My advice is to turn it off for a while, and let it rest for about an hour. Overheating is a big problem with their devices, especially the smaller ones.

Also, try hooking it up to a Mac. A different OS may respond to flaky hardware differently.
posted by yesno at 7:59 AM on July 1, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks yesno. I'm in on my work PC running Win2k. All seems to be right with the data, but I think it's time for another round of "burn to disc" back ups for the mp3s.
posted by FlamingBore at 8:03 AM on July 1, 2005

Here's what I would try: hit ctrl+alt+delete, and kill any extra processes, most importantly explorer.exe. You will lose your desktop, start menu, etc. when this happens, but don't worry. Then from the task manager, select file->new task-> type 'explorer' and hit enter. Now try accessing the folder. If this doesn't solve the problem, it's most likely something hardware related.
posted by creeront at 8:29 AM on July 1, 2005

What happens when you navigate to the folder via cmd line?
posted by jackofsaxons at 8:37 AM on July 1, 2005

I've had endless problems with Lacie hardware.

Ditto that. I haven't bought lacie gear in a few years, but recently took a chance on the 1TB ethernet disk NAS server cuz it solved (in theory) a small problem I had cheaply and (they asserted) easily. What a dog. Endless problems. A $1200 paperweight. It's about to go back to lacie for testing, but I almost don't care if it never comes back. Too late for your problem, and it may not be the drive. But you might run a disk repair utility on it. What happens if you try to copy the folder (without opening it) to another drive?
posted by realcountrymusic at 11:22 AM on July 1, 2005

If it's an explorer problem, Tools -> Folder Options -> Web View -> Use windows classic folders will turn off the "preview" sidebar in directory windows (instructions are for 2K, but are probably similar for XP) and speed up directory navigation no end.

jackofsaxons' suggestion of using the command line is an excellent one, though, assuming it's not a hardware fault. If it's one bad file, you may be able to copy blocks of files from the command line - "move a* c:\audio" style of fing.
posted by Leon at 11:24 AM on July 1, 2005