External 1394/USB Hard Drive compatibility

[SPAnDAU]

I've setup two different external hard drives on a few different win2k machines here and have noticed a curious problem. With the 1394 Maxtor drive you cannot transfer more than 2GB of data at a time.

I talked to Seagate about their USB drive, and they said, "Our USB drive will NOT have that problem" and by that of course they meant it DOES.

Have any of you heard about this problem, and if so do you know of any workarounds?

 

[Nevo]

That's insane.

I'd keep calling their tech support line. Be patient and don't let anyone hang up on you until you get an acceptable answer. Talk to supervisors, second level support, whatever it takes.

I'm sure that *somebody* in their tech support department knows of the problem and the fix. Unfortunately, it might take patience and persistence to find that problem.

Remember to use honey and not vinegar.

Also, please post the exact error message you receive so that we can query on that.

 

[SPAnDAU]

There is no error message at all, it just stops transferring.

Maxtor admitted to the problem, saying it is a Win2k problem not theirs. Anybody tried this on a Mac or Linux? So far seagate has played dumb.

 

[eyez]

It's hard to believe it's a w2k problem. Look at some of the firewire array drives out there for video editing stations (which uses w2k). I can't imagine a 2g limit.

 

[eyez]

Just hooked up all 4 of my new maxtor 40g firewire drives. Did a transfer of 3g video file in w2k....no problem. Guess I'm luck.

Even with the fastest ide drives today, tranfers of multigig files are still really disappointingly slow. Can't wait until the day when 1gig/sec transfer is possible.