My external drive is disconnecting and reconnecting itself

[Chad Sexington]

So.. that's basically it. I bought an external drive. It's Seagate, has its own power, connects through USB.

Every once in a while it plays the 'device disconnected' sound, disappears from the My Computer, the system tray icon vanishes, and then in 30-60 seconds it plays the 'device connected' sound and it shows right back up. I've lost no data and it's never done this while being used (not that I've had it too long, just a day) but it is annoying and confusing.

[ncts_dodge_man]

Is it powered via USB or a power "brick?"

If it's USB - are you sure it's getting enough power? Sometimes you need to use a USB Y-cable to get enough power to the device.

If it's externally powered, a quick thing to check is make sure the cables are firmly plugged in and are not having issues (try another cable if you have one)

[PatrThom]

What he said. Plus it may be going to sleep if not used often enough.

--Patrick

[Chad Sexington]

It has it's own cable, and I've checked the connections as well as substituted another cable.

[figmentPez]

- Try another USB port.
- Try it on another computer
- Update your MoBo drivers.

[Matt²]

how OFTEN is it occurring? If not for several minutes, and running Vista or 7, go into control panel, go to POWER optioons, and set Usb settings (under advanced options) for Usb Selective Suspend Setting to DISABLED and see if that makes a difference? Other than that it sounds like it's a loose usb connection itself and as has been said already, try a different port.

[Chad Sexington]

Thanks everyone. I've tried EVERYTHING here, and some other forums/sites. It still does it. I'm really confused. It seems to happen at about 20 minute intervals, that is, 20 mins connected, 30-60 seconds disconnected. It does NOT disconnect when being used. Say I'm watching a 3 movie ripped to the drive, or listening to tracks on that drive, it doesn't disconnect. It's only when I'm not actively accessing information on it. This wouldn't matter except that during the disconnect-reconnect situation, my computer freezes up. I can move the mouse but can't change windows, keep typing, click anything, etc. but when the 30-60 second window is over, all the inputs I made occur.

There is an option in the Power management settings to tell the hard disk to never 'sleep'. I don't know if this is the feature that's affecting it. Is it risky to tell it to never sleep?

[Matt²]

sounds like the sleep mode IS putting it to sleep. I would turn it off. If that doesn't solve it, it's likely a power saving feature in the case/software/firmware of the external drive.