usb HD failed when xfer big files
 

I'm using an external usb HD (40GB) on my Ubuntu Hoary installation.
I'm posting this here since i know that all the best technical geeks can be found here... :p

Partition1: Small 1GB FAT32
Partition2: Larger 37GB FAT32

It got automounted fine on my desktop!!... Whoohoo!

Everything works fine when transferring "normal" files to it (with Gnome)...
But not for bigger files (starting at about 500Mb)... The copying timer keeps getting longer and longer, after awhile i got the "Error.......couldn't copy......."...

I then click Cancel and my usbdisk partition got unmounted by Linux...!!!
My usbdrive light keeps the light red (read/write activity)...
And if i check my device links (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2), they're gone!!!

I tried copying a file ~250Mb... ok... Then tried another one ~270Mb... fine again... But if i select both than drag them to my usbdrive folder... The problem occurs...

If i want to get back to normal, I totally unplug my usbdrive then plug it back...
My device links got back and partitions are automounted

Some infos:
USB Pocket Hard Disk Drive (2.5")
No fstab entry since it's automagically detected and mounted by Ubuntu...
All this on a Dell INSPIRON 5150... Works great with Ubuntu.. \\/

NB: I've tried to do it manually, adding my fstab entry but i have same result:
/dev/sda2 /media/usbdisk-1 vfat noauto,umask=000,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,user,nosuid 0 0

I really need this to work since i have a couple of DVD iso files (~4.7Gb) to dump on this usbdrive...

Regards,
Ti-Paul.

I'm thinking it's a hardware problem. Perhaps the only way to get the files across is to break each large file up into multiple zip or rar files. There are others that have posted about similar problems with external USB hard disks.

same problem with big files and another drive (oregon mp303 1.5GB hard drive).
doesnt seem to be a hw problem, since files get copied well on windoze.

problem found on Fedora core 3 (kernel 2.6.8 i think) and debian (kernel 2.6.i_dont_remember :)

on fc3: copy returns error, device disappears and lsusb gets locked
on debian: copy says disk full (although disk is not really full!!) and umount gets locked if i try to.. (uh!) unmount the drive (couldnt do more tests as the computer labs where i was working were about to close.. and i don't really want to lose time and do further tests now:)

More info:

Got same result on Windows XP... Can't copy a bunch or single file of more than 500Mb... Drive just freeze in "activity" state...

Same result when formatted in VFAT (FAT32), ReiserFS or EXT2...........

I saw that many people seem's to have same problem... And no one attests that it's really working...!?

Maybe it's the USB "design" that produce this bug!?!?!?