Ext USB Seagate HDD random dis/re-connecting !

Hi All,

I have an external Seagate Pushbutton Backup 300GB USB HardDiskDrive (ST330062 2A). It works perfectly (most of the time), no problems at all. It's a few months old, never been dropped, the power supply is fine and the USB cable/connection is fine. It reads and writes fine also but there is one problem that bugs me and I don't know if it's the HDD itself or a PC problem...

Randomly, the Ext HDD drops it's USB connection to the PC and then reconnects again. Every time it reconnects I get a small window showing the files on the HDD being quickly scanned then the usual window asking 'how do I want to view the software on this HDD' etc. This is driving me mad, it's particularly annoying when trying to burn a CD or DVD from this HDD because during the burn process it often drops its USB connection thus ruining the disk. Sometimes it will sit for hours without a problem, other times it dis/re-connects every few minutes or so.

I have updated WinXP-SP2. Drive is

Any help appreciated thanks and happy new year.

Hansanter

Try another USB socket and see if that makes a difference, and check it with Seagate Seatools. If it's going bad it's not worth the trouble to mess with, RMA it to Seagate.

Have you tried running drive diagnostics on your disk?

Use the diagnostic/maintenance utility that came with your disk, and check for an updated version online at Seagate Support/Downloads.

If one wasn't provided, try Seagate Seatools, and run the SMART tests, and the generic tests. Seatools also doubles as a firmware updater for Seagate products, so use it to check for new firmware. New micro-codes often fix issues like that - dropouts, performance issues, incompatibilities with certain controllers etc.