USB copy from camera hangs

[zjrt02]

I'm running XP Pro SP 3 with latest P2 drivers for HPX-250; I even reloaded them. When I first got the camera I was able to put it USB DEVICE mode and copy the data from the P2 card directly to the computer. Now any copy stops about 1/3 to 1/2 way through. All that can be done is cancel the copy and disconnect the camera. I've tried different USB cables.

Now I have to download the files to an external HD then connect the HD to the computer and copy them from the HD.

Anyone have any ideas why this has started happening and what can be done about it?

Thanks,

Richard Thompson
T4 Media

[THoff]

Do you have any antivirus software running on that system? If so, try disabling it temporarily to see if that helps. Another thing that may be worth doing is to run a disk integrity check with the surface check option on the computer's hard drive.

[zjrt02]

No AV. Target is a 1 TB RAID 0. I can try to run chkdsk on it.

[THoff]

Another possibility is USB bus saturation or power-down. Is the camera plugged into a USB port on the computer or a hub?

Each USB device draws a certain amount of current and if the total provided by the root hub is exceeded, a device will be selected for shutdown. If you have a couple of devices plugged into one hub, you could be (sometimes only temporarily) exceeding the amount of current that is available and causing devices to disconnect.

RAID can be very temperamental, especially when the array was built using standard desktop drives that attempt extended error recovery. For RAID it is better to have the drive report errors immediately and let the controller or software deal with it. I would also check the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drives to see if there are any reallocations where a spare sector was substituted for a bad one.

[zjrt02]

The camera is plugged into one of two front USB connectors on my HP xw9300. An external HD is plugged into the other one. I'll pull the HD and see if that makes a difference. It's possible my early successes were without the external HD plugged in.

What tools do you recommend to check the disks?

Thanks!

[THoff]

For the file system and surface check you can use CHKDSK /F /R, or if you're not comfortable with the command prompt, bring up the Properties dialog for the drive in Windows Explorer, go to Tools, and use the Error Checking tool.

The S.M.A.R.T. information is usually available in the BIOS, but there are also free utilities like HD Tune (http://www.hdtune.com/) that can report it.

[zjrt02]

Thanks. I have stuff to ingest today and will try unplugging the external HD. If that causes problems I'll check the target HD.

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UPDATE:

Gee, how smart are you! :)

Tonight's DL worked flawlessly. Even though I didn't have a lot of stuff to DL tonight I did disconnect the external HD. Additionally I powered the cam through the AC adapter instead of the battery.

In hindsight this is most likely the configuration I used when things worked, I just didn't notice that as a difference.

FWIW, my original good transfers were at the end of the day and I HAD to use the AC adapter since the batts were kaput. The closest AC plug was the one used by the HD in question!

I hope that's the culprit.

I wonder if the Panny USB implementation is a bit touchy?

YOU WERE A LIFE SAVER!!!

Thanks so much!.