Copying from External USB drive to another

valve90210 · 10 Dec 2007 at 13:21

Hi there

I appear to be having a bit of a problem at the moment and don't know if there's a probolem with my comp or if it's a limitation of the design of USB.

I have 3 external USB hard drives, one of which has masses of TV programmes I have archived from my Humax PVR. I want to transfer these to one of the other external drives.

I can have them both switched on and windows recognises them both and allows access to them both. However if I want to transfer files from one drive to the other it starts off ok then just freezes up the whole computer.

My assumption is that is a limitation of USB, cos the drive that is being read is maxing out the USB traqnsfer rate and hence not leaving anything for the other drive to be written with (or something like that but probably with longer more complicated words).

Does that sound about right? Or is there some problem with my computer, if so what might it be?

If this is a limitation of USB, are there any workarounds other than manually moving everything from one external drive onto an internal drive, then manually moving everything from the internal drive to the other external drive, which obviousley means the whole process takes twice as long and requires 2 lots of action from me.

Is there any software which I might be able to set up to do the above workaround automatically so I can just set it moving the files and it'll use an intermediary drive automatically???

ANy help or thoughts much appreciated!!!

Valve

valve90210 · 10 Dec 2007 at 18:24

Darn, was hoping someone might be able to hel me on this.

I've been googling for ages trying to find any info but not had any luck finding anything useful

Will have to keep on looking

Valve

fobose · 10 Dec 2007 at 18:32

It shouldn't be a problem. Try doing it via another PC?

valve90210 · 10 Dec 2007 at 19:34

might it be because the files are all really rather big...at least a couple of gig?

Valve

fobose · 10 Dec 2007 at 19:55

It shouldn't affect it, all it would do is slow down the transfer to 15mb/s (I think).

gvers · 10 Dec 2007 at 20:13

Are your USB disks externally powered if not it could be a voltage issue

valve90210 · 11 Dec 2007 at 09:19

Yeah their both externally powered. One is a WD drive in an ICY box, the other is a WD external drive.

I did have a thought, one of the drives is plugged into one of the front USB slots, the other is plugged into one of the rear slots, could this cause a problem of any kind if the front ones for example were extensions from the rears or something?

Valve

gvers · 11 Dec 2007 at 10:11

What OS are you running? I'll give my 2 drives a try tonight.

As for software to move the files you just do a batch file something like

xcopy d:\ c:\usbdisk
xcopy c:\usbdisk e:\
del c:\usbdisk

mattyfez · 11 Dec 2007 at 10:58

Have you tried copying from the usb drive to the pc, and then copying from the pc to the other drive?

valve90210 · 11 Dec 2007 at 12:48

gvers said:
What OS are you running? I'll give my 2 drives a try tonight.

As for software to move the files you just do a batch file something like

xcopy d:\ c:\usbdisk
xcopy c:\usbdisk e:\
del c:\usbdisk

I'm uising XP home edition.

Can copy fine from one external to the comp and then from the comp to the other external but from one external to the other just dies after a few seconds.

Valve

bad_ass_neil · 11 Dec 2007 at 15:49

can you update your board drivers? could be a driver issue?
just a guess.

valve90210 · 10 Jun 2008 at 17:05

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I am still suffering from the problem I posted in the OP, and wondered if anyone might have any other thoughts???

Also, could might someone be able to test copying from one external USB drive to another just to confirm that it should indeed be possible.

Ta muchly to anyone that can help.

Valve

Chris1712 · 10 Jun 2008 at 17:19

Its plenty possible i have 2tb of externals quite happily talking to each other over usb. I would whack them both in the rear USB and make sure no other beefy usb devices are plugged in like dvd-rw etc. and try again. Should work just fine.

Vista 32 here.