WD My Passport 070a Freezes Computer

[bobsklarservices]

I have an external Western Digital My Passport Essentials 070a HDD and I have a lot of critical data/backups on it. I recently, just after having connected it via USB, saw Windows notifications of "Delayed Write Failed" for almost every folder on the drive. I received 40 notifications before someone who was walking a little too close pulled the plug. After that, when I tried to connect the drive to the PC, it freezes, even my mouse becomes nonresponsive. This is my school PC, so I cannot download anything onto it, HP Compaq TC4400 with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Service Pack 3. Thanks in advance to any help I can receive.

[patio]

Disconnect the drive...
Do a few consecutive cold boots and then power down...
Re-connect the drive and power up...

Does it see it now ?

[bobsklarservices]

I should probably present another piece of information that I neglected to mention earlier, I have tried this drive with five different computers, but to no avail. I am also using a Nook USB cable, on which the B-end connection is the same, but is a little short. With this information, it seems more likely to be an issue with either the drive or the cable. Any other suggestions? I thank you.

[Computer_Commando]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330174
BTW, Steps 1-8 under "Resolution" are missing the steps to enter the Device Manager.  Nice job Microsoft.

[bobsklarservices]

Thanks to Computer Commando for trying to help, but Registry Editor and all MMC snap-ins are restricted by group policy. I can bypass this by doing a "jailbreak" of sorts, but I would not be able to save changes in the case that I did this.

[patio]

Have you tried what i suggested above yet ? ?

[bobsklarservices]

I did indeed, and no joy. My computer simply failed to get past "Applying computer settings..." on the boot. I was forced to perform a hard shutdown.

[bobsklarservices]

Do we have any other suggestions? I have a group project that's due in two weeks and my group members are irritated because of (hopefully) temporarily lost data.

[Computer_Commando]

Thanks to Computer Commando for trying to help, but Registry Editor and all MMC snap-ins are restricted by group policy. I can bypass this by doing a "jailbreak" of sorts, but I would not be able to save changes in the case that I did this.

If the computer belongs to the school & you are not granted full access, there's nothing else you can do, other than contacting the school's IT department & let them deal with it.

[bobsklarservices]

I believe it is a problem with the drive, it has occurred with every computer I have tried to connect it to.

[Computer_Commando]

All Windows XP computers?

[bobsklarservices]

Indeed. Should I try a different OS?

[Computer_Commando]

I'm not sure, but the issue may be limited to WinXP & certain computers using it.  I have seen the same error on a WinXP machine from time to time.  Formatting of the USB device always fixed it, but that is not practical in your case.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330174
It would certainly be worth trying it on a computer with a different OS.

Are the computers all laptops?  Is the WD drive Notebok (2.5) or Desktop (3.5)?  i.e. 2.5 drives are self powered, 3.5 drives have their own power supply.  I have several WD USB notebook drives.  1 older used to exhibit the same behavior, been reformatted FAT32 a few times.

[bobsklarservices]

I tried it on another computer running XP, had a little more luck. Was able to list folder contents for the drive, but then rendered unable to actually read anything, and after closing Explorer Window, the computer had the CPU/memory usage shown below. I also tried it on a computer running Win7, got a warning that the drive needed to be formatted before being usable.
Computer_Commando: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=440#tab3 - but it's a 300GB model.

Another thing:
Windows Delayed Write Failed to:

• E:\$Mft
• E:\$MftMirr

But at the same time: Disk Write Caching disabled for WD My Passport 070a

IMAGENAME  PID    CPU      MEM
System         4        100%   152,000K

62 Total Running Processes
Same state for 37+ minutes

[Computer_Commando]

NTFS file table is corrupted.  Try chkdsk e: /f from the command prompt on the WD drive.
If no success, there are other tools to try.