Commander crashes when accessing a specific disk

[mandos]

Hello there!

I have an external WD harddisk assigned to the letter W
under Windows Vista

whenever I try to access W: through total commander it gets stuck and I have to kill it through the task manager
I just tried tc7.04 and the problem still exists

TC can easily access all of my other external drives (I have 3 more attached) and all other devices (virtual drives, card readers, internal drives)

the same disk that has the problem works ok with TC on other computers (at least I remember so, it's been months since I sat on another computer)

my computer is a toshiba a200 laptop and the disk a wd passport 120gb

any ideas on how to fix it?
is it a bug of TC, is it something that has to do with my drive (might there be a problem in my fat table?)

ps: TC7.03 worked perfectly with a wd passport 250gb
ps2: forgive me for my english, I hope I explained everything as good as possible

[ghisler(Author)]

What does the disk contain in the root? Just folders, or some kind of files? It could be a virus scanner trying to scan some huge files on the disk, locking the computer (and/or TC) for several minutes.

[mandos]

it has an autorun.inf and an icon
the autorun is edited by me, but I do this on all of my disks

my antiv is nod32, even if I close the live system scan the problem persists

[mandos]

edit:

you are right, it takes ages to access the root folder
I left it there for 20-30mins and it was ok
crawling to deeper directories was fast but once I went back to the root it got stuck again

[Hacker]

mandos,
FileMon

HTH
Roman

[mandos]

filemon doesn't work under vista

i've downloaded process monitor but I don't see anything that I can understand

I got these:

Code: Select all

115227	12:48:40,5067211 πμ	TOTALCMD.EXE	1800	CreateFile	W:\RECYCLER\desktop.ini	IO DEVICE ERROR	Desired Access: Generic Read, Disposition: Open, Options: Sequential Access, Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a
170316	12:49:06,1237890 πμ	TOTALCMD.EXE	1800	CreateFile	W:\RECYCLER\desktop.ini	IO DEVICE ERROR	Desired Access: Read Data/List Directory, Synchronize, Disposition: Open, Options: Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Complete If Oplocked, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, AllocationSize: n/a
170317	12:49:06,1238565 πμ	TOTALCMD.EXE	1800	ReadFile	W:\$Directory	IO DEVICE ERROR	Offset: 0, Length: 4.096, I/O Flags: Non-cached, Paging I/O, Synchronous Paging I/O, Priority: Normal
228879	12:49:31,7297931 πμ	TOTALCMD.EXE	1800	ReadFile	W:\$Directory	IO DEVICE ERROR	Offset: 0, Length: 4.096, I/O Flags: Non-cached, Paging I/O, Synchronous Paging I/O, Priority: Normal

i'm trying to figure out what's happening
tomorrow I'll try it on another computer, not running vista

[Hacker]

mandos,

filemon doesn't work under vista

Ah, you're right, sorry.

Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

According to Microsoft, you need Process Monitor:

Note: Filemon and Regmon have been replaced by Process Monitor on versions of Windows starting with Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Vista. Filemon and Regmon remain for legacy operating system support, including Windows 9x.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

[karlchen]

Hi, mandos.

filemon doesn't work under vista

Have you tried it? Did you get an explicit error message stating that Filemon cannot be run on Vista? (You did right click filemon.exe and select "Run as administrator"?)

According to Microsoft, you need Process Monitor:

Note: Filemon and Regmon have been replaced by Process Monitor on versions of Windows starting with Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Vista. Filemon and Regmon remain for legacy operating system support, including Windows 9x.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Not sure about that.
The development of Filemon and Regmon has been stopped. Their state is frozen.
Process Monitor is something like (Filemon + Regmon + some parts of Process Explorer). Process Monitor will only run on the Windows versions listed in Christian's quote. Yet, this does not necessarily imply that Filemon and Regmon do not co-operate with Vista any longer.
I have not tried either of them on Vista, however, so far. This is why I ask: Have you tried it in the right way? And if so which error message have you received?

Regards,
Karl

[karlchen]

Hi, mandos.

In your initial post you stated that the problem started with TotalCommander v7.04 and that TotalCommander v7.03 worked perfectly.

Can you be bothered to
+ install TotalCommander v7.03 in addition to v7.04
+ test whether the issue can be reproduced in v7.04 and v7.03 or only in v7.04
+ make sure that you run T.C. v7.04 using a clean INI file, please, by launching "totalcmd.exe /I=.\empty.ini"

Karl

[HolgerK]

<OT>

...

filemon doesn't work under vista

Have you tried it? Did you get an explicit error message stating that Filemon cannot be run on Vista? (You did right click filemon.exe and select "Run as administrator"?) ...

Code: Select all

Filemon on Vista
================
Filemon has been replaced by Sysinternals Process Monitor
for file system monitoring on Windows Vista. Download
Precess Monitor at:

        Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

                      [OK]

I thought you knew that.

Kind regards,
Holger
</OT>

[karlchen]

Hm, and why then did Filemon v7.03 and Regmon v7.03 just launch fine and without any complaint on Windows Server 2008 32bit only a few minutes ago? (Vista and Server 2008 are pretty close relatives.)

Yes, of course, right-clicked the executables and selected "Run As Administrator".

But perhaps this debate should be done in the appropriate forum, not here, hijacking poor mandos's thread.

Karl

[HolgerK]

.. i've downloaded process monitor but I don't see anything that I can understand

I got these:

170316 12:49:06,1237890 πμ TOTALCMD.EXE 1800 CreateFile W:\RECYCLER\desktop.ini IO DEVICE ERROR Desired Access: Read Data/List Directory, Synchronize, Disposition: Open, Options: Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Complete If Oplocked, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, AllocationSize: n/a
...
28879 12:49:31,7297931 πμ TOTALCMD.EXE 1800 ReadFile W:\$Directory IO DEVICE ERROR Offset: 0, Length: 4.096, I/O Flags: Non-cached, Paging I/O, Synchronous Paging I/O, Priority: Normal

May be a hardware problem.
Do you see a correlated message("IO DEVICE ERROR") in "Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer -> Windows Logs: System"?
Did you try to run "chkdsk w:" from an elevated command console?

Regards,
Holger

[ghisler(Author)]

I couldn't find any information on "IO DEVICE ERROR", but it's probably not a good sign. I suggest that you try a tool like Speedfan (right click - as administrator) which can read out the so-called S.M.A.R.T. health data of your harddisks:
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

[HolgerK]

AFAIK external USB /eSATA drives are not supported by SpeedFan.
Alternative tools to read out SMART information are:
HD Tune 2.55
HDD Health
CrystalDiskInfo
BTW: CrystalDiskInfo is the only one which works fine with my Vista nVidia SATA drivers.

2mandos
The best would be to use the Western Digital diagnostics tool:
Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows

Another point could be the USB power supply of some external hard disk solutions.

USB guarantees only 5Volt/500mA per port. These 2.5Watt are not enough for an external hard disk!
One (bad) solution is to connect the external drive using a "Y" split USB cable to connect the drive with two usb ports of the computer.
Bad because:
- a parallel connection will not always offer twice of the current (small differences in output resistance resulting in different loads on each output).
- if the current is limited by a fuse, the notebook's USB port itself can be damaged.

In such a situation it's a better solution to connect the drive over a self powered USB hub.

HTH,
Holger