In attempting to do the transfer we found that at random times Windows would report "DELAYED WRITE FAILED" and disconnect the drive. The only solution was to reboot the computer and windows would find the drive again.
After a few more times using the drive it was obvious this was a systematic failure. Doing searches on google showed that it was a known issue where that particular Maxtor drive was incompatible with certain USB chipsets. In particular, an Intel chipset, not an obscure generic chipset.
All four variations of computers that I had immediate access to used the same Intel chipset. I contacted Maxtor tech support to discuss the issue:
I got this drive about a month ago and have had regular problems with it. Windows will happily communicate with it for a while, and suddenly in the middle of a transfer I'll get "One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it." Windows will refuse to talk to the drive again until I reboot windows. Power cycling the drive doesn't help. I have duplicated this behavior with three different computers and three different USB cables.I have run the 3100 diagnostics program and it reports that the drive passes the test.
They replied:
If you right click on My Computer, left click on Manage and left click on Device Manager, you will see the USB connections at the bottom of the tree. The PS 3100 is not compatible with the Intel 82801 chipset. If you recognize this chipset model you will either have to replace the drive with another model (any other model of Maxtor drive will work) or you can install a USB 2.0 PCI adapter card and that will circumvent the chipset.
Ok, they acknowledge the drive is flawed. My turn:
I checked, all three computers I use have the 82801 chipset. Is Maxtor providing discounts or upgrade paths for users who bought this defective hard drive? Is there a way to send it back in for a credit?
Obviously, after admitting the drive is a failure, they'd take corrective action.
Unfortunately, we are not. A PCI adapter card is the only fix for this chipset.We show the drive as being out of warranty since April of 2006. If you just purchased the drive from a retailer, I would suggest returning it to that location. Only the PS 3200 and PS 3100 are incompatible. Any other Maxtor hard drive will function.
This was unacceptable, and I decided to make sure they knew that:
This isn't a warranty issue. You state that the drive, as manufactured, does not work with one of the more common USB chipsets.You also state that any other Maxtor product works fine with this chipset. I've tried my Western Digital and my Seagate external hard drives on the same machine, they work fine.
Nothing on the packaging said that the drive worked only with certain chipsets. The packaging said that it was USB2 compatible, and now you're telling me it's clearly not. It's flawed, by design, and I want it fixed.
Buying a PCI card is not an acceptable solution. I have three computers here that will need to share the external hard drive, and one of them is a laptop. I'm not going to buy two PCI and one PCMCIA USB2 cards to allow the hard drive to talk to the computers.
I'm aggravated that I spent a month dealing with a quirky drive trying to isolate the problem and now I learn that the problem was known and never disclosed.
I want this drive replaced with one that conforms to the USB2 standard.
Hopeless, the tech support brick wall:
I'm sorry. With the drive being out of warranty, there is nothing we can do.
Sure there is, but they weren't going to do anything about it. I printed up the email correspondence and gave it to my wife, along with a copy of The Art of Turboing. Since Seagate had recently purchased Maxtor, I also gave her the name and phone number of Brian Dexheimer, Executive Vice President of Customer Service and a number of other divisions.
She dutifully called and talked to his secretary, who sounded quite eager to solve the problem and make the customer happy. The secretary gave my wife another person to contact, who then gave my wife another contact, this time someone in tech support.
The tech support person actually called us first, and wanted us to try a few things. After verifying the problem, they sent us a Maxtor OneTouch III USB drive to replace the Personal Storage 3100 that was broken.
Months later, we finally had another use for the drive, and started using it. It worked fine for a few weeks, and then stopped behaving. Windows would report that the device failed to start. We determined that trying to contact Maxtor was useless if they were going to just send us another Maxtor drive.
As an aside, I have many years of faithful service from my internal Maxtor drives, but the external ones just don't live up to the behavior of the internal ones.
We decided to just crack the case and buy a new enclosure for the drive. When we opened the case, the problem was obvious!
The drive had settled inside the housing and pulled itself from the IDE connector on one side.
The drive was shipped without any mounting screws to hold it in place. I'm disappointed that something as obviously easy to spot would get past Q.C. If this is standard practice, it's amazing that more of them don't fail. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else with a OneTouch III who has taken the cover off.
Well, the solution was simple, bolt the drive to the housing.
Four screws and it runs as good as new.
I've learned my lesson, and hopefully Seagate will not adopt the procedures of their recently acquired business.