Do I have a dud Surface? External USB drives keep disconnecting & reconnecting

[MickeyLittle]

Sorry, sorry, sorry! Sheesh!

The reason I didn't mention the brand is because I think I am in the exception who need a 10-port hub; most people I've encountered (even just by reading posts) require far fewer that that. Anyway, enough of the suspense, the model I am currently using is Amazon.com : Cable Matters 10-Port SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Hub : Usb Network Adapters : Computers & Accessories

Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Thanks for the info. That is a fantastic looking hub and $50 isn't bad at all. I'm going to check out their website because I like the one with the card reader but it only had 3 USBs. If I can find it with 5 USBs...

Thanks again and............... Happy New Year!

 

[Nuspieds]

Thanks for the info. That is a fantastic looking hub and $50 isn't bad at all. I'm going to check out their website because I like the one with the card reader but it only had 3 USBs. If I can find it with 5 USBs...

Thanks again and............... Happy New Year!

You're very welcome and Happy 2014 to you, too!

If you can't find the one you want with the card reader, there's always the option of using one of those USB 3.0 adapters for card readers. It is not as convenient as just having a dedicated card reader slot, but at least it is a workaround.

 

[Nitemare]

I have no issues using a WD My Passport Ultra 2 TB or any other USB device. I also use an Anker 4 port USB 3 hub (device powered) with my peripherals without a problem.

 

[hazymat]

Hi all

Original Poster here... to answer the main questions

1/ I confirm that I do NOT use a USB hub. I am plugging the Samsung external drive directly in to my Surface Pro 2

2/ I have already turned off USB Selective Suspend in the power options for my current power plan.

Just plugged a brand new 3TB Samsung D3 Station drive, formatted as NTFS. Works for a while, then when I start reading and writing data to the drive, USB disconnects after a few seconds, reconnects, and then says the drive needs scanning.

Couple this with the fact my MS Surface doesn't charge when you plug it in (I've followed the MS article thoroughly to troubleshoot this, but it still doesn't charge), and I'm a pretty unhappy chap.

I guess I'll get straight on to Microsoft support about this. I just dread being without a machine for anything over a day!

Mat

 

[schluff]

Solution:

Help! After installing Windows 8.1, my USB drive disappears or file transfers stop unexpectedly? - Microsoft Windows USB Core Team Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Find the vid & pid and add it to the registry. I had the same Problem with my Kingston usb flash drive.

schluff

 

[hazymat]

Solution:

Help! After installing Windows 8.1, my USB drive disappears or file transfers stop unexpectedly? - Microsoft Windows USB Core Team Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Find the vid & pid and add it to the registry. I had the same Problem with my Kingston usb flash drive.

schluff

Hey Schluff

Yours may just be the most useful forum response I've had in a loooong time.

I'm going to try this now, test, and post my results...

 

[hazymat]

Okay - sadly this didn't work for me

I read through this article and did the initial test to see if this would fix the issue by making this setting:

Power Options
> Hard disk
- turn off hard disk
- set to never

After only a few minutes of copying files to the drive, the thing disconnects and I get various messages:

- notification bar popup "delay write failed"
- command line: "the system cannot find the file specified"

etc.

To re-iterate - brand new hard drive. I bought three. All 3 of them do the same. All 3 work on other machines...

 

[Nuspieds]

To re-iterate - brand new hard drive. I bought three. All 3 of them do the same. All 3 work on other machines...

Sorry nothing has worked out for you thus far.

But with three drives all repeating the same issue, yet all three work perfectly on another device, then at this point I'd conclude that it is the Surface.

By the way, what about any other device directly connected? Does everything you connect via the USB 3 port get randomly disconnected?

 

[hazymat]

Does everything you connect via the USB 3 port get randomly disconnected?

Good question. Nope - everything else works without glitch. So I use a wireless connector for my Wacom Intuos (graphics pad) connected constantly, and it never disconnects. I really don't understand.

I just sent the following to the authors of the USB blog:

Hi there- I was reading your article "Help! After installing Windows 8.1, my USB drive disappears or file transfers stop unexpectedly…"

Unfortunately the solution didn't work for me, and in your blog you asked for readers to send through a link to the trace file.

I ran a trace, then stopped the trace at the time my device stopped working, please download that trace file from here. (Note: I FTP'd the file to my business website, it's legit!) http://www.matsmithphotography.com/download/temp/bot.etl

Background: I tested 3 brand new Samsung D3 external hard drives (3TB) on my new Microsoft Surface Pro 2. All drives test okay on other desktop PCs running Win 7. However on my Surface the drives cut out anything between 1 minute and 15 minutes (usually 1 minute if you are writing to them).

I set "Turn off hard disk" to "never" in power options. However this does not solve the issue!

Hence the trace.

Unfortunately I can't give you the hardware IDs. When I go into device manager and look at hardware IDs for the disk in question, there are no PIDs or VIDs listed. Just the following:

USBSTOR\DiskSamsung_D3_Station_______0202
USBSTOR\DiskSamsung_D3_Station_______
USBSTOR\DiskSamsung_
USBSTOR\Samsung_D3_Station_______0
Samsung_D3_Station________0
USBSTOR\GenDisk
GenDisk

-------

I'm really hoping you can respond with more than just a "thanks for the information"... because right now I'm £1500 down on a tablet computer that I can't run my business from, and I've spent so many hours trying to troubleshoot this already you are my only hope!

Thanks

Mat

 

[Nuspieds]

What about flash drives? Those also work flawlessly? If so, the problem is only limited to USB HDDs?

Also, when you tried the three different USB drives, I'm presuming you also used three different cables (i.e., the ones that came with each device)--in order to definitely rule out the cable as the culprit?

 

[hazymat]

What about flash drives? Those also work flawlessly? If so, the problem is only limited to USB HDDs?

Also, when you tried the three different USB drives, I'm presuming you also used three different cables (i.e., the ones that came with each device)--in order to definitely rule out the cable as the culprit?

I don't have any flash memory to hand but I did also test with a completely different brand of hard drive which also had a different brand of controller and a different USB cable and the same happened.

I'm currently testing with third type of external hard drive (good job I have all these drives hanging around with nothing on them that I don't mind getting corrupt data on!) - this time a Seagate notebook drive plugged into an Icy Dock (HDD dock) which is USB 2.0.

Will try to dig out an old USB flash drive and test...

 

[Nuspieds]

I don't have any flash memory to hand but I did also test with a completely different brand of hard drive which also had a different brand of controller and a different USB cable and the same happened.

I'm currently testing with third type of external hard drive (good job I have all these drives hanging around with nothing on them that I don't mind getting corrupt data on!) - this time a Seagate notebook drive plugged into an Icy Dock (HDD dock) which is USB 2.0.

Will try to dig out an old USB flash drive and test...

What??! What do you mean you do not have a flash drive around to test??!! I can't understand how one can NOT have at least one USB flash drive hanging around somewhere.

Seriously, though, if a flash drive also gives the same issue then the problem seems to be related to drive devices, but if the flash drive works, then the only conclusion I can make is that it is an HDD device issue.

How new is your machine/what's the warranty status? Hopefully it is still under warranty because the next thing I'd try if I were you is to exchange it.