Copy to external USB harddrive fails

[badasafish]

I'm having trouble copying files to an external harddrive in Windows 10. Using the same external harddrive on a Windows 7 PC works fine. Ports on the laptop that is having issues are USB 3.0 and I've removed and reinstalled the driver for both the USB controller and the external HDD. These are relatively large video files around 1.5 GBs in size, and I am able to copy FROM the drive OK, but trying to copy TO (copy -> Paste in Windows Explorer) the transfer will potentially start, then slow to 0 KBs and then eventually fail with Error 0x8007045D: the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. The external harddrive then locks up and can only be reaccessed by removing and reinserting the USB connector.

Now from advice on forums I have set the external harddrive to be accessed using the performance setting and enabled write caching on the device but still the transfers fail. Another suggestion was to use safe mode in Windows 10 which I tried and I was able to successfully complete the transfers here.

Therefore my question is how can I figure out what is causing the transfers to fail in "full" Windows 10 but to complete in Safe Mode?

TL;DR - Large file transfers TO external USB harddrive fail unless windows is running in Safe Mode. Why?

 

[panathas]

Something is going on with the USB driver. I had experienced a similar issue but it was 5 years ago and it was on windows 7. Back then I had just bought my first USB3 hard drive but I couldn't write many files to it. The write speed would drop to almost 0 and then a blue screen appeared. After a lot of troubleshooting I found out that it was the USB driver responsible for that behaviour and I had to manually search for the latest version. Are you sure that you are installing the latest drivers? Not just the USB but also other important motherboard drivers such as SATA, chipset, etc. In safe mode the system uses generic drivers, that's way it's working there.

 

[badasafish]

Something is going on with the USB driver. I had experienced a similar issue but it was 5 years ago and it was on windows 7. Back then I had just bought my first USB3 hard drive but I couldn't write many files to it. The write speed would drop to almost 0 and then a blue screen appeared. After a lot of troubleshooting I found out that it was the USB driver responsible for that behaviour and I had to manually search for the latest version. Are you sure that you are installing the latest drivers? Not just the USB but also other important motherboard drivers such as SATA, chipset, etc. In safe mode the system uses generic drivers, that's way it's working there.

Many thanks for you prompt response. I've checked on the Intel Website and the Dell support site and there are no relevant updates available, therefore I have also posted on the Alienware forum to see if they can advise me about getting the most relevant drivers.

Thanks, again

 

[panathas]

If you can't find newer drivers, you should also keep in mind that a third party software such as an antivirus, automatic back-up software or something else that loads during the start-up process can interfere with the file transfer process. That kind of software usually doesn't automatically start in safe mode thus you are able to complete the file transfer there. You could use msconfig and disable all third party software that automatically start with windows and if you are able to complete the transfer with that configuration then it's a software issue and by using again msconfig and enabling start-up software one at a time you can find the exact program that's causing this.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there badasafish,

Even if the drive works just win under another OS, I believe that it would be nice to back up the data stored on it.
After that, you can make sure that both drives are in a healthy condition if you just test the with some of these: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Let us know how this goes,
D_Know_WD