TiVo Community Forums Archives - USB2- drive enclosures

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USB2- drive enclosures
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Posted by: andrew_katz

When I upgraded the HDDs on my TIVO, I used a CD-ROM drive in a USB-2 drive enclosure to boot the MFSTOOLS boot disk and it worked a treat.

However, I was wondering how people got on with these things in general.

When I used the same enclosure (a Belkin 5.25 in model) with a hard drive, it sort of worked OK for a while in USB2 mode, but I kept on getting various IDE block errors. When I plugged it into a USB 1.1 port instead, it worked perfectly (albeit very slowly). I popped my DVD-RW drive in there, and it works fine as a CD-ROM drive, but is not recognised at all by any of the DVD-writing software. Nero will recognise it as a CD-RW drive, but crashes when I try to write to things.

This is on 2 different PCs with 2 different USB2.0 ports.

I also have a no-name 3.5in HDD enclosure. The theory is fantastic, but in practice I have similar problems with various disk read and write errors, on both PCs. It'll work OK for say 15 minutes (during which time it is blisteringly fast - even slightly quicker than the disk connected directly to the IDE bus). Then I start getting errors like "a USB2.0 peripheral is connected to a USB1.1 port" (windows XP) or the thing just disappears entirely and the event log shows there was some sort of read error. I have the same issue with 2 different drives installed in it (80GB IBM and 5GB Seagate) and on both computers. I left the IBM (7200rpm) in it switched on overnight, and when I removed it the next day it was so hot I could hardly touch it - that would make it somewhere bewteen 50 and 60C I guess!

Incidentally I also have a couple of card readers which I use with SD cards and memory sticks (USB 1.1 and USB 2.0) and they work perfectly.

Looks like I have been unlucky with 2 USB 2.0 peripherals which don't work well. Any other experiences of these things?

- Andrew

What are other people

Posted by: TivoTown

I've found both USB 1 and 2 to be a bit flaky, especially when you have other USB devices connected. Also, I think the quality of cables can affect performance.

Have you tried the HDD as the only USB device? How about a cable change?

Posted by: andrew_katz

I did try the HDD as the only USB device, but it didn't make much difference. I also tried the (thicker) USB2 cable which came with the Belkin enclosure instead of the (thinner) one which came with the 3 1/2" enclosure, and did this seem to have some positive effect on reliability.

Posted by: Ian_m

Wouldn't be a Via chipset on your motherboards would it ?

Posted by: TivoTown

quote:
Originally posted by Ian_m
Wouldn't be a Via chipset on your motherboards would it ?

Mine is Via are they known to be bad?

Andrew- I guess it's also worth getting the latest motherboard drivers to see if they help.

Posted by: Ian_m

Yip,

I have had reports from some of our customers using some of my companies Via boards, having problems with USB2 drives (under any OS) just disconnecting when stressed. See if you can find a copy of the MS harddisk stress program CPSTRESS.EXE as that normally produces the fault.

Fixes are either use Firewire 1394 external drive or Intel 845 chipset.

Posted by: andrew_katz

Both mobos only support USB1.1, so the USB-2 ports are on add-on cards. I'm not sure which chipset.

I also have a linux box with USB2 on the Mobo (using a super-cheapy ECS K7SOM+ with an integrated Duron 1800+) which on a very sketchy test seems to work fine.

BTW, is it possible to install Win98 on an external USB drive? W2K won't, but Linux seems reasonably happy to.

- Andrew

Posted by: Ian_m

W2k and XP can't be installed on removable drives, something to do with requirement for swapfile to be on non-removable media.

Not too sure about Win98 though.

You do of course need a BIOS that supports remote boot via USB/1394.

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