# i/o device error on maxtor external hard drive



## pmilne

I have a Maxtor external USB 250Gb hard drive.

I just tried to access some files on the ex-h/d and got an error message.

"request could not be performed because of an I/O device error"

The ironic thing is i was accessing them so i could back the files up on to DVD-RW's. Timings impeccable...

Maxtor are a great help, check the cables, try a different usb socket etc. Obviously none of this helps one bit.

From the various forums ive seen this seems to affect the whole drive. My problem is just on three folders which contain several hundred tiff / jpg images from my digital camera.

So i cant understand why some of it works and some doesnt.

The only thing i ran was a recommended third party defragmenter. But again all the other drives on the computer and ex-h/d work fine.

Dilemmas


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## Terrister

Is the DVD-RW internal?


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## whodat

welcome to tsf
how long has the maxtor been in operation? has it worked right along, or did you externalize it with the pictures preloaded?
post back

[externalize?}


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## keymaker

hmmmm.....perform a chkdsk on the hdd and see if that helps. if you are using windows xp as your primary o/s then go into my computer -> right click on the external drive in my computer and choose properties -> then click on tools -> click on check-error in the error checking section -> click automatically fix errors -> and then the computer will ask you to reboot computer.

then chkdsk process will begin. afterwards the computer will boot into windows again and see if you can access the files from the external hdd.


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## pmilne

The hard drive is external. Mostly music and digotal camera images are stored on it.

Its been in opeartion for about 6-8 months. It was actually a replacement from maxtor for another ex-hdd that went belly-up too.

Its always worked fine and pictures were from back-up dvd's (but ive added lots more since then - avid photographer.

As i mentioned its strange cause its only partly not-working, so cant be cables etc. 

I will try the check disk (never occured to me to try this !)

Thanks for the advice and i will let you all know. As always the forums always have far more sensible advice that the manufacturers


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## whodat

run a virus scan on that drive.


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## humungus.curran

I have exactly th esame problem - slow to see th edrive- will see and read some folders but not others (one of the folders it can't read contains al my photos as well. This seems a common problem judging by th enumber of posts on forums.
Hugh


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## pmilne

same things happened again.

this time to my music,

about 300 folders have disappeared (the properties tell me there still 33Gb used from the 70Gb partition), leaving me with about 30 folders of music (all of the artists beginning with A).

Ive now got to reinstall about 18 DVD's worth of music.

wont be recommending Maxtor to anyone.

can be relied upon ! :4-thatsba


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## hmseo

pmilne -

I was wondering if you ever got your files back, two years later.

I have a My Book 400GB External HD experiencing the same problem.

I am able to read what's left, but if I try saving anything, files begin disappearing. Though available disk space indicates they are still there.

I had the same error message one other time with a 256MB thumb drive that I accidentally removed while transferring files onto it.


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## pmilne

i never got it sorted.

the files appear and disappear as if they have a mind of there own. The drive also works intermittely.

I still have it but no longer use it as it cant be relied upon.

For this reason i vowed never to purchase a maxtor drive again.

I have three WD My Book Premiums (250Gbx2 and 500Gb) and these work fine. i now use a mac book pro as well (but still have the same problem with the maxtor)

I intend to buy a 2Tb Raid Storage device (Iomega or similar) in the new year, hopefully as a more reliable storage. I wil still use the My Books as back as well.

I have WAY to much stuff to lose now (10,000+ music, 4500+ photo's and 200+ films) so i need to be extra carfeul.

Good luck in recovering the data - it will just decide to work one day as mine did - i wasted no time transfering everything off and onto two separate xHD's

Best of luck


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## Goodsilver

I have a Maxtor that did the same thing. I still can not get to run on my XP So I hook it up to my old Dell with 98 installed .it loaded up just fine. so all is not lost,,,hope this helps,


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## blackdivel2000

i got the same problem 
i bought a 500 GB MAXTOR and from the first day it say I/O error 
and it not display for me the driver in windows 
and i can't see it by dos or partition magic oor even paragon
so what i can do ????


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## lavajava

Looks like an ongoing issue. I have 2 doing it. Also looks like Maxtor could care less


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## TheMAGNIFICENT

I also have the same problem. I have a bunch of videos on mine, i can't play them, i can't copy things off it or onto it, or delete them.
Is there anything i can do?

Ben


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## rouseslave

I have a 500gb maxtor external drive also, with the same exact problem as ben right above me. maxtor is zero help, of course, but i would really like to be able to salvage at least some of the videos i have on it... any ideas? or are they just lost? oh, and is this something that just happens with all external HDs? i really like having the extra space, and would consider getting another one, but if the inevitable outcome is lost files, well...


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## TheMAGNIFICENT

Since last posting i have been able to recover some of the files off my hard drive, some of them have been corrupted but most of them i have been able to copy to a friends hard drive.
Everytime I got the error message, I would disconnect the drive , turn it off and then on again. This seemed to work and allowed me to continue copying the files.
This isn’t supposed to happen with hard drives, both my brother and sister have exactly the same hard drive as me, and have had no problems with them.
I have since reformatted my hard drive, and it has been fine too.
If you are worried about losing your information (videos etc) there is always data recovery, there are several companies that provide this service, tho they do charge quite a bit.

Another thing I would recommend, to anyone considering buying an external hard drive, is to but a ‘Seagate freeagent’, I recently got one, as a replacement for my Maxtor (tho that has started working again) and it comes with autobacking up software, that you can set to run at any point (ie, Tuesday 3pm or everyday at 3pm) or manually tell it to do so.
They are really good hard drives and I have no complaints at all.

Hope this helps

Ben


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## pmilne

im still doing WD exHD's and have the imonega raid 2Tb tower. im even thinking of getting a drobo.


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## lostlobster49

I had the same problem and I found reformating it worked. I couldn't even right click on the external drive but I found a site that told me how to reformat another way:
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/
I hope this works for you as well.


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## ICASEI

No Need to REFORMAT!!!!

I believe I stumbled upon a fix to this and just wanted to go around making sure people know how to fix this ridiculous problem.

open up the cmd prompt

I haven't had this happen with Win 7 so I'm not sure about that one

older version of windows select RUN from start menu and type cmd

from there type "chkdsk X: /f" no quotes and replace X with whatever drive it is.

It should perform a scan and once complete should work just like new!

YAY!!!!!!

Peace, Love, Harmony


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## blackdynamite

apologies for bringing this one up again, but i've been having all the same problems as everyone else, except when i run the line in the command prompt (chkdsk blah blah) it says, "chkdsk is not available for RAW drives".

anyone have any ideas on this??

I've got only basic computer knowledge, so hopefully i'm able to get this one sorted.

thanks for your help.


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## PetmicPL

I have the very same issue with my 500gb unit its about 8 months old ..I would jus t love to get the info on it back.

"chkdsk is not avaiable for RAW drives"

Please let me know if you get a solution


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## Goodsilver

I posted this two years ago. Mine did the same thing but I hooked it up to and older PC I had laying around with windows 98 it run just fine, so I got my info off the drive. I have no idea why this worked but I am glad it did.


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## Sallyo

I also tried everything suggested on this thread to no avail. I eventually took my external hard drive to the computer shop to see what they could do to fix it. 

When the guy opened up the hard drive he noticed the connection was loose. All that was wrong was the casing had fallen off of chip inside. He just had to push it back together and it worked again perfectly! No more I/O device error, I couldnt beleive it!


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## Snake32

I'm having similar problems with an Asus Eee PC1005HA. The C partition works just fine, but since a couple of months some files on the D partition have gone corrupt. If I try to erase, open or copy any of these files the HD will start humming every half minute or so and the computer gets really slow.

If I try to copy or move the file the computer will slow down as soon as I select a corrupt file. The HD will grind for some time before telling me that it has encountered an I/O problem and can't access the file.

Does anyone have any idea how to come around this problem? I've tried accessing the file in explorer and DOS to no avail. I even tried shutting explorer down from the task manager so it would not interfere with DOS, but I still can't get to the file.

I'd be grateful for any help.


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## BMiBudster

hi i have a WD which i believe stands for western digital 1TB external hard drive and i as well have encountered the I/O error, the thing is it doesn't do this with all the files i try to upload on it, only the files that are 1gb and up in size, aside from that when i do try to upload 1gb and up sized files it also tends to load forever and doesn't let me use task manager and forces me to reset my comp... im trying to place files on it so i can remove this fail OS that is called vista and get windows 7 on my comp, but its taken me forever thnx to this HD giving me this error....

has any1 found a solution yet to make these HD work properly? i tried all the suggested things and for the cmd and type chkdsk X: /f solution i get a "access denied as you do not have sufficient privileges."
"you have to invoke this utility running in elevated mode."

i think i did the dskchk manually and it said the drive is working fine no errors...please help


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## BMiBudster

still waiting for response :S


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## mhmoodrafat

I Have fixed the same problem by using CHkDSK command line , it's usefully and very simple .

see this line to see how can you used :

Chkdsk


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