Solve : External hard drive causing Windows loading to freeze for 5 mi

1.	Solve : External hard drive causing Windows loading to freeze for 5 minutes?
Answer» Ok, this is one of those rare times when I'm asking for help instead of giving it here. I have an external USB Acer hard drive, 1 TB in size. Powered by an AC adapter. (I don't know the exact model number off the top of my head and I'm not at home. I'll get it later if necessary.) The computer is my home computer (see the full specs to the left). It's running Windows 7 Home Premium. Ok, here's the issue. Previous, I never needed to turn the drive off when booting. It never caused any problems. A couple weeks ago, we had a power outage for a few minutes (common here) while the computer was running, but as far as I know the hard drive wasn't in use at the time (although it was plugged in and turned on). Prior to the power outage, the computer would boot fine even with the drive plugged in and turned on. However, since the outage, if I turn the computer on while the drive is powered on, I'll get to the Windows 7 loading screen and the computer will freeze there for about 5 minutes (the pulsating Windows logo freezes). If left alone, it will finally continue to load and the computer and drive will work normally. If I turn the drive off before booting the computer, Windows 7 will load normally and I can turn the drive on after Windows loads and it works fine. All of the data on the drive seems fine. There are no issues with the drive once in Windows. I've tried scanning the drive for errors, but that came up clean. At this point, I want to avoid formatting the drive. There's about 750GB worth of data on it and I don't have enough room to relocate those files to format and see if that helps. I was wondering if any of you have any other SUGGESTIONS as to what might now be causing the drive to cause the loading of Windows to freeze like it is and what I might do to correct it without formatting it. It wasn't doing this prior to the outage and hasn't stopped doing it since. There are no other issues with the computer. It runs perfectly except for this one little annoyance now.If the power outage was accompanied by a surge or spike then it is possible that some damage was caused, to the electronics in the external drive (or its power supply) or to the computer itself. Sometimes a power outage can be caused by a fairly drastic event such as lightning striking an overhead power wire or a short circuit or a switching surge,especially if you live in a rural area and/or your power lines are up on poles especially if you are or near the end of a long branch circuit. Sometimes the damage is done not when the power goes but when it comes back. If the hard drive was plugged in and turned on then it is possible that Windows was doing some background stuff on it - file indexing, NTFS housekeeping, etc - even if you were not aware of any programs writing to, or reading from it. I would personally try to localize the fault by plugging the drive into another USB port on the same computer, into another computer if you have one, and seeing if the boot is affected. In the end if it was me and I decided the drive was the problem I might pony up for a new 2 TB external drive (they are always useful) and get my important data off the now suspect drive and relegate it to non-critical usage. Just my thoughts. Like I said, the drive works perfectly, the data is all intact. I've tried switching ports already, forgot to mention that, but it still causes the boot to freeze for 5 minutes once the Windows logo appears. If it's turned on after booting, then it starts right up, gets recognized, and can be used in seconds like it should. I don't have another Windows 7 system here, but I have a one running XP and a laptop with Vista. I'll try those and see what the results are.What about uninstalling the USB bus from device manager and then reinstalling?truenorthOk, here's what I've found: Windows XP loaded like it normally does (in under a minute). No issues recognizing the drive immediately after boot and viewing everything on it. However, Windows Vista isn't going so well. It's been almost 5 minutes now and I'm still waiting. The boot doesn't appear to freeze like it does with Windows 7, as the Windows Vista loading bar is still moving. However, it taking a long time to boot, much longer than usual like my Windows 7 system. Quote from: truenorth on June 05, 2012, 09:39:21 AM What about uninstalling the USB bus from device manager and then reinstalling?truenorth Not SURE where you're going with that, unless I missed something. The ports all work fine. Even other drives being plugged in during boot (I also have a Western Digital Passport 500GB and an Maxtor Basics 100GB drive) don't cause any issues. And Windows Vista has finally loaded while typing this. Drive was immediately recognized and works fine, but it did prolong start up substantially.Yes well with all due respect we did not know this from the information initially provided. "The ports all work fine. Even other drives being plugged in during boot (I also have a Western Digital Passport 500GB and an Maxtor Basics 100GB drive) don't cause any issues." So where i was going was to eliminate (maybe) the aspect of a problem occurring from something related to your usb connections. Obviously because this is something that has just occurred where it wasn't a factor before something has changed. By the sounds of things it is most likely the relationship between the Vista O/S and it's dealing with usb ports. What about (because of your extensive involvement with computers) temporarily installing an internal pci usb card and seeing if the results are the same in Vista.Then in my opinion it would then likely be more of a factor re something in Vista that has changed.I do appreciate that your last post does indicate that other devices do function properly so it would appear not related to the usb functioning. However on another post recently where a member was having sound card issues (with both an on-board and a newly installed card) my suggestion of installing an external sound card did resolve the issue in that the sound issue was resolved. So that is where i,m headed here.Suggested with the certain KNOWLEDGE that you know much more about computers than i do however sometimes WISDOM can come from the mouths of babes (not in the gender sense).truenorth Is the "indexing service" turned on in Vista ? ? The fact it works fine in XP says it's Vista...not the drive itself. Quote from: patio on June 05, 2012, 10:56:23 AM Is the "indexing service" turned on in Vista ? ? The fact it works fine in XP says it's Vista...not the drive itself. from what I can gather the situation is this: Windows 7 slow boot if drive connected Vista slow boot if drive connected XP normal boot whether drive connected or not By default, on all three operating systems, all drives are indexed. Indexing can be disabled on a drive-by-drive basis, or globally for all drives. First, I just want to apologize to Truenorth. Looking back at how I worded that, I think it sounded a bit impolite and I didn't mean it that way at all. I'm really sorry if it sounded that way. I probably could have worded that better. I really was just curious as to what you were thinking with that and I should have worded it better. I've been really busy and haven't had time to mess with this again yet. I'm at the office today and will be taking one of my 1TB drives from here and backing up what's on the drive I'm having issues with, then I'll try to redo the partition and format and see if that helps. Quote from: patio on June 05, 2012, 10:56:23 AM Is the "indexing service" turned on in Vista ? ? The fact it works fine in XP says it's Vista...not the drive itself. I will check that tonight. If it's on by default, I would assume it's on since I never disabled it. The same with my Windows 7 desktop. Quote from: Salmon Trout on June 05, 2012, 11:07:58 AM from what I can gather the situation is this: Windows 7 slow boot if drive connected Vista slow boot if drive connected XP normal boot whether drive connected or not By default, on all three operating systems, all drives are indexed. Indexing can be disabled on a drive-by-drive basis, or globally for all drives. That's correct, ST. Windows 7 and Vista suffer from this during booting, Windows XP does not. Anyway, I'll pick up on this again tonight when I get back home. Thanks again guys.quaxo,Very gracious of you to apologize but in truth it was absolutely not necessary.You are amongst a group on the CH forums that set a great example of selfless service and one that i admire for what you do here. Given your information re your problem my suggestion probably seemed unlikely to resolve it ( i too would agree with that). However from past experiences sometimes things like that do work (for whatever unfathomable reason). So as you note it was indeed a rare occasion for me that so often witnessed your assistance to others to perhaps be able to help you.truenorth Ok, still working on this. I've been really busy and I'm just now able to get back to this today. So I tried a quick format, but I didn't really expect it to make a different. I moved some of the data back (about 30GB worth) and tried again. It still did the same THING, but not quite as long this time. I expect it has something to do with the significantly lower amount of data on the drive. What I'm doing right now is I've completely deleted the partition, created a new partition, and it's now in the process of formatting. After that's done, I'll copy some data back to it and give it another go.Ok, I finished making a new partition and formatting. Took hours to copy all the data back to the drive. However, that seems to have fixed it. Windows loads normally again when the drive is already plugged in. Anyway, thanks for the help. That was my last resort just because of the time it takes to do, but turned out to fix the problem. Kind of weird since the drive otherwise worked perfectly fine.Good on you.Now enjoy your summer,truenorthWell that would figure. Just got the drive up and working again then... the power went out again this morning. Problem is back. Oh well, at least I know how to fix it this time.

Solve : External hard drive causing Windows loading to freeze for 5 minutes?

Answer»

Ok, this is one of those rare times when I'm asking for help instead of giving it here.

I have an external USB Acer hard drive, 1 TB in size. Powered by an AC adapter. (I don't know the exact model number off the top of my head and I'm not at home. I'll get it later if necessary.)

The computer is my home computer (see the full specs to the left). It's running Windows 7 Home Premium.

Ok, here's the issue. Previous, I never needed to turn the drive off when booting. It never caused any problems. A couple weeks ago, we had a power outage for a few minutes (common here) while the computer was running, but as far as I know the hard drive wasn't in use at the time (although it was plugged in and turned on). Prior to the power outage, the computer would boot fine even with the drive plugged in and turned on.

However, since the outage, if I turn the computer on while the drive is powered on, I'll get to the Windows 7 loading screen and the computer will freeze there for about 5 minutes (the pulsating Windows logo freezes). If left alone, it will finally continue to load and the computer and drive will work normally. If I turn the drive off before booting the computer, Windows 7 will load normally and I can turn the drive on after Windows loads and it works fine.

All of the data on the drive seems fine. There are no issues with the drive once in Windows. I've tried scanning the drive for errors, but that came up clean. At this point, I want to avoid formatting the drive. There's about 750GB worth of data on it and I don't have enough room to relocate those files to format and see if that helps. I was wondering if any of you have any other SUGGESTIONS as to what might now be causing the drive to cause the loading of Windows to freeze like it is and what I might do to correct it without formatting it. It wasn't doing this prior to the outage and hasn't stopped doing it since.

There are no other issues with the computer. It runs perfectly except for this one little annoyance now.If the power outage was accompanied by a surge or spike then it is possible that some damage was caused, to the electronics in the external drive (or its power supply) or to the computer itself. Sometimes a power outage can be caused by a fairly drastic event such as lightning striking an overhead power wire or a short circuit or a switching surge,especially if you live in a rural area and/or your power lines are up on poles especially if you are or near the end of a long branch circuit. Sometimes the damage is done not when the power goes but when it comes back. If the hard drive was plugged in and turned on then it is possible that Windows was doing some background stuff on it - file indexing, NTFS housekeeping, etc - even if you were not aware of any programs writing to, or reading from it. I would personally try to localize the fault by plugging the drive into another USB port on the same computer, into another computer if you have one, and seeing if the boot is affected. In the end if it was me and I decided the drive was the problem I might pony up for a new 2 TB external drive (they are always useful) and get my important data off the now suspect drive and relegate it to non-critical usage. Just my thoughts.
Like I said, the drive works perfectly, the data is all intact. I've tried switching ports already, forgot to mention that, but it still causes the boot to freeze for 5 minutes once the Windows logo appears. If it's turned on after booting, then it starts right up, gets recognized, and can be used in seconds like it should.

I don't have another Windows 7 system here, but I have a one running XP and a laptop with Vista. I'll try those and see what the results are.What about uninstalling the USB bus from device manager and then reinstalling?truenorthOk, here's what I've found:

Windows XP loaded like it normally does (in under a minute). No issues recognizing the drive immediately after boot and viewing everything on it.

However, Windows Vista isn't going so well. It's been almost 5 minutes now and I'm still waiting. The boot doesn't appear to freeze like it does with Windows 7, as the Windows Vista loading bar is still moving. However, it taking a long time to boot, much longer than usual like my Windows 7 system.

Quote from: truenorth on June 05, 2012, 09:39:21 AM

What about uninstalling the USB bus from device manager and then reinstalling?truenorth

Not SURE where you're going with that, unless I missed something. The ports all work fine. Even other drives being plugged in during boot (I also have a Western Digital Passport 500GB and an Maxtor Basics 100GB drive) don't cause any issues.

And Windows Vista has finally loaded while typing this. Drive was immediately recognized and works fine, but it did prolong start up substantially.Yes well with all due respect we did not know this from the information initially provided.
"The ports all work fine. Even other drives being plugged in during boot (I also have a Western Digital Passport 500GB and an Maxtor Basics 100GB drive) don't cause any issues." So where i was going was to eliminate (maybe) the aspect of a problem occurring from something related to your usb connections. Obviously because this is something that has just occurred where it wasn't a factor before something has changed. By the sounds of things it is most likely the relationship between the Vista O/S and it's dealing with usb ports. What about (because of your extensive involvement with computers) temporarily installing an internal pci usb card and seeing if the results are the same in Vista.Then in my opinion it would then likely be more of a factor re something in Vista that has changed.I do appreciate that your last post does indicate that other devices do function properly so it would appear not related to the usb functioning. However on another post recently where a member was having sound card issues (with both an on-board and a newly installed card) my suggestion of installing an external sound card did resolve the issue in that the sound issue was resolved. So that is where i,m headed here.Suggested with the certain KNOWLEDGE that you know much more about computers than i do however sometimes WISDOM can come from the mouths of babes (not in the gender sense).truenorth Is the "indexing service" turned on in Vista ? ?
The fact it works fine in XP says it's Vista...not the drive itself. Quote from: patio on June 05, 2012, 10:56:23 AM

Is the "indexing service" turned on in Vista ? ?
The fact it works fine in XP says it's Vista...not the drive itself.

from what I can gather the situation is this:

Windows 7 slow boot if drive connected
Vista slow boot if drive connected
XP normal boot whether drive connected or not

By default, on all three operating systems, all drives are indexed. Indexing can be disabled on a drive-by-drive basis, or globally for all drives.

First, I just want to apologize to Truenorth. Looking back at how I worded that, I think it sounded a bit impolite and I didn't mean it that way at all. I'm really sorry if it sounded that way. I probably could have worded that better. I really was just curious as to what you were thinking with that and I should have worded it better.

I've been really busy and haven't had time to mess with this again yet. I'm at the office today and will be taking one of my 1TB drives from here and backing up what's on the drive I'm having issues with, then I'll try to redo the partition and format and see if that helps.

Quote from: patio on June 05, 2012, 10:56:23 AM

Is the "indexing service" turned on in Vista ? ?
The fact it works fine in XP says it's Vista...not the drive itself.

I will check that tonight. If it's on by default, I would assume it's on since I never disabled it. The same with my Windows 7 desktop.

Quote from: Salmon Trout on June 05, 2012, 11:07:58 AM

from what I can gather the situation is this:

Windows 7 slow boot if drive connected
Vista slow boot if drive connected
XP normal boot whether drive connected or not

By default, on all three operating systems, all drives are indexed. Indexing can be disabled on a drive-by-drive basis, or globally for all drives.

That's correct, ST. Windows 7 and Vista suffer from this during booting, Windows XP does not.

Anyway, I'll pick up on this again tonight when I get back home. Thanks again guys.quaxo,Very gracious of you to apologize but in truth it was absolutely not necessary.You are amongst a group on the CH forums that set a great example of selfless service and one that i admire for what you do here. Given your information re your problem my suggestion probably seemed unlikely to resolve it ( i too would agree with that). However from past experiences sometimes things like that do work (for whatever unfathomable reason). So as you note it was indeed a rare occasion for me that so often witnessed your assistance to others to perhaps be able to help you.truenorth Ok, still working on this. I've been really busy and I'm just now able to get back to this today.

So I tried a quick format, but I didn't really expect it to make a different. I moved some of the data back (about 30GB worth) and tried again. It still did the same THING, but not quite as long this time. I expect it has something to do with the significantly lower amount of data on the drive.

What I'm doing right now is I've completely deleted the partition, created a new partition, and it's now in the process of formatting. After that's done, I'll copy some data back to it and give it another go.Ok, I finished making a new partition and formatting. Took hours to copy all the data back to the drive. However, that seems to have fixed it. Windows loads normally again when the drive is already plugged in.

Anyway, thanks for the help. That was my last resort just because of the time it takes to do, but turned out to fix the problem. Kind of weird since the drive otherwise worked perfectly fine.Good on you.Now enjoy your summer,truenorthWell that would figure. Just got the drive up and working again then... the power went out again this morning. Problem is back.

Oh well, at least I know how to fix it this time.

Solve : External hard drive causing Windows loading to freeze for 5 minutes?

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