[vlad1]

my motherboard was recently changed. the old one allowed me to connect my maxtor external hard drive via either a usb or a firewire port. the new one permits the firewire connection but will not work with the usb port. the following was one message received "the request could not be performed because of an i/o device error". i've also received variations of that message when trying to work with the drive. my computer recognizes the presence of the drive but nothing more. i use xp home.

is it possible that the technician who installed the new motherboard might have installed windows in a manner different than what i had?

sure would appreciate help as i'm tearing out what remains of my hair.

thank you

 

[johnwill]

Well, I use USB drives extensively, and I've never seen that error. Did you look in Device Manager and see if there's an error on the USB devices? Do other USB devices work in the USB port you're trying to attach the drive to? Did you try the USB drive on another system, perhaps the USB port has been toasted, or the cable is bad.

 

[vlad1]

hi john - thanks for taking the time to reply.

i tried two different external hard drives and neither worked. again, one also has a firewire connection and that did work. i tried three different cables and got the same result with each one.
i don't have any other devices which require usb2 other than the two external hds. the only other usb device that i have is a printer and it appears to work fine in all the ports. i don't have another computer to try the external hard drive on but will try to borrow a neighbor's.

i'm a bit of a rookie so i'm not real familiar with the device manager. i did look and didn't see any error message.

i'm wondering if each of the usb ports are not set up for uhb2?

again, i'd appreciate any advice.

thanks

 

[johnwill]

I doubt it's the speed of the USB ports, since all the USB disks I've ever used (a bunch) work just fine on USB 1.1 ports, just a lot slower. I think if you have more than one USB drive that used to work on your system, and now it doesn't, you have a system issue.

The first thing to try is to delete all of the USB components from Device Manager, and reboot and allow the system to discover the ports again. That sometimes fixes oddball issues like this.

 

[vlad1]

hi john - permit me to update you.

the external drive worked fine in a laptop with only usb1.1. as you expected, it was slow but it did work. i deleted all of the drivers and let windows rediscover them and it still won't work.
the motherboard is a biostar and it uses a via chip.

interestingly, i'm also having trouble with my computer freezing up from time to time when i am capturing with my ati video device. i posted that problem to a different forum and the responder asked if i had a via chip as he had a similar problem caused by that chip.


is via a quality chip?

many thanks

 

[johnwill]

I've had less than stellar results with the VIA chipset in several systems, though they sell a lot of chips. It's real hard to say if it has anything to do with the VIA chipset, not enough information. My advice would be to do a Google groups search and see if anyone else has identified a similar problem with the same chipset.

 

[x5dr]

I'm not sure if it has a fix but you might try the latest VIA 4 in 1 driver. You can find it thru google.

 

[vlad1]

hi - did so but i still have my problem. i'm at a complete loss as to what to do at this point.

thanks

 

[johnwill]

At this point, I think I'd make a GHOST image of the boot partition, and then do a clean install of Windows. If it doesn't help, you can just put back the old image. OTOH, if it fixes it, which I suspect it will, you'll have to install your applications onto the new installation.

 

[vlad1]

interesting development.

the only items contained on the external hd were videos captured with my ati card and some files from using smartripper. i tried moving files other than videos files to and from the external drive today and they transfer fine.

soooo, given this and the fact that my computer freezed from time to time while capturing with the ati video card, i suspect that my problem is some kind of compatibility issue between via chips and ati cards.
i visited the ati websire and there are numerous mentions of problems.

stay tuned.

 

[Terencefy]

Similar problems

Any updates on if you were able to resolve the I/O device error while connecting with your USB2.0 ext. HD and the freeze-up while capturing DV?

I am having similar problems with my HP laptop (HP model ze4610US, XP Home, AMD cpu) and a 40GB USB 2.0 AcomData ext. HD. The laptop came with USB1.1 and works fine with the ext. HD. I got a USB2.0/Firewire combo card for the laptop and is getthg the same I/O error VLAD described when I connect to the ext. HD. Also, when I try to capture DV via the Firewire connection, the recording starts correctly but it freezes the laptop when I click on the button to stop the capture. I am using the video-capture software, ULead v.5, that came with the laptop combo-card.

I have tried all the different possible fixes listed in this thread (except reinstalling Windows altogether) and search the web, but to no avail.

Any help is appreaciated. Thanks.

 

[vlad1]

hi terrence - sorry that i did not answer your prior e-mail. i was having some trouble with outlook and somehow lost your message. it's been a while since this problem but here is what i remember: i found some forums that described a compatability problem between the via chip on the motherboard and my video card. i finally gave up the ghost and got a new motherboard and everything has worked fine since. sorry, but i don't think that will be any help to you.

vlad

 

[Terencefy]

Video capture resolved

An update...

The video capture no longer freezes the laptop now thanks to an update that I got from HP for the ATI videocard.

I am still without luck in resolving the I/O error while accessing the USB 2.0 ext. hard drive.