I recently installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and even though I installed it to a completely different harddrive, it messed up my windows 7 files and so my harddrive with Windows 7 was corrupt, however that’s not the problem I just wanted to explain why I’m only running the Consumer Preview of Windows 8.
The problem is that whenever I try to use my external hdd it disconnects and reconnects, this only happens in windows 8 and when I try to plug it into any of my machines that still runs windows 7 it works fine. I looked around on the internet and couldn’t find anything other than to change some things for the USB tab in the more advanced power options in Windows, this however didn’t fix the problem.
Since it only disconnects and reconnects on my Windows 8 machine which is sadly my primary I don’t think it’s a faulty hdd so I really don’t feel like sending it in and getting it repaired / exchanged besides I’d like to keep my content.
Another problem is that I can’t even make backups of the drive because it disconnects.
So is there anyway to get it to work properly in Windows 8? Is there any settings that I need to change (other than the one in power options since that didn’t work) Or do I have to wait for a later build / official release?
I don’t know if there is a way to make it work in Windows 8 or not it’s a beta. I have purposely not tried to use any of my externals with Windows 8. I would guess it has something to do with the USB drivers. I notice in W8 the remove safely icon shows with nothing connected in W7 it doesn’t show until a device is connected. I also noticed a fault in the event log I think it is USB related. I loaded W8 on a virtual hard disk and dual booted. I think the Metro in W8 interface is junk for a desktop! When I install Windows I always disconnect all USB devices.
I’m not sure yet, I’m still testing it as I write this, but it seems to work and run stable on USB 2.0 ports. Sure it goes **bleep** of a lot slower, (from ~100MB/s on USB 3.0 to ~35 MB/s on USB 2.0) but at least it works.
I bought my external HDD bundled with a Pci(-e?) usb 3.0 card. Any idea where I can find the drivers for these? Maybe they’ve been updated becuase I know I had to install the drivers for that card to be able to even see the HDD in Windows 7.
Edit: After some testing I’m completely sure that the harddrive runs fine on a USB 2.0 port, yet when I plug it into a USB 3.0 port it disconnects and reconnects on usage with bigger files or many small files.
