Tim: >> You aren't trying to connect two drives at the same time with the >> same volume name? Antonio: > Of course not!!! I connected the external USB drive to two different > PC with no other USB drive Well, it was always on the cards. If I had two external drives, I might use them on the same box, at some time or other. Perhaps to move files around between them. >> Just to see what happens, if you can, connect the problem drive to >> the Windows box, and rename it. Now, see if it works in Linux. > Funny: it did the trick.....renaming label was sufficient to have my > USB disk appearing on my Linux boxes....it is a kind of magic, isn't > it??? ;-) I probably wouldn't have seen your problem, for a couple of reasons: I'd probably have re-formatted them. And whether or not I did, I would have renamed them, giving them individual names. I wonder if the big name drives, like Lacie are any better than the little name (or no brand name) drives? I've got a cheapie, here, that causes my modem (in another room) to disconnect. I did a test that probably most computer guys wouldn't have the gear to do, connecting an oscilloscope to the device to see if it was radiating crap. Sure enough, if I measure the shield across the USB lead (both ends of the wire), there's several volts of hash on it from the switch mode power supply. The computer is grounded, the external drive is floating. I connected the CRO ground to the shield where the USB cord is plugged into the computer, and the CRO probe to the shield on the other end of the USB cord (at the drive end). That hash is across the length of the USB cable, on the shielding. When I get around to it, I might try putting a hefty ground wire between the two cases, and see if that makes any difference. Lifting the earth wire on the computer and monitor cables, and putting ferrite beads on all the USB drive cables went some way towards stopping the disconnects, but that's the sort of thing (earth lifting) that I only want to contemplate doing on the test bench. The obvious good way to handle this would be (a) get a better USB drive, but I suspect all the locally sold ones are just as awful, (b) change the LAN NIC for one that uses transformer coupling, but it's on-board, and a low-profile case. -- (This box runs FC7, my others run FC4, FC5 & FC6, in case that's important to the thread.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
