My notebook PC runs XP Home, SP2, but has no USB 2. I bought a PCMCIA card (NEC chipset) to provide 2 X USB 2 sockets and I connect an Archos USB 2 portable media device to one of these sockets. It now works satisfactorily after I disconnected the PC's USB 1 Wi-Fi dongle and disabled the Zone Alarm Firewall and anti virus software, running at what seems to be USB 2 speed within the spindle speed constraint of the Archos MPEG4 device (separate post elsewhere about that problem, which is now resolved).
I have now bought a LaCie external USB 2 hard drive with the intention of connecting it to the adjacent socket on the USB 2 PCMCIA card to enable archiving of multimedia files from the Archos to the LaCie as well as for general video editing purposes. Unfortunately, connecting both devices to the PCMCIA card results in 'hanging' and then Windows crashing. Disconnecting the Archos and connecting only the LaCie to one of the PCMCIA's USB 2 sockets results in the LaCie being able to copy files from the PC at what seems to be USB 1 speed, or less, -e.g. about 4 hours for a 1.3 GB video file.
In Device Manager, the LaCie drive appears as a Seagate, but in USB Controllers it appears as a LaCie. Windows' drivers in both places are signed in 2001 and I cannot see anything more uptodate on Microsoft's website. The LaCie drive came without any drivers for Windows XP.
If anyone has any suggestions to help me get the LaCie to work at something like USB 2 speed, I should be most grateful.
Thanks,
Tony
I have usb2 on two different pc's.
A gateway 2000 pc , and a sony vaio
Sony has a pci usb2 card
gateway is built in.
gateway reads/writes to a usb2 hard-drive at a faster rate than the sony , yet both state they are usb2 connections.
I therefore don't believe all usb2 devices are equal / nor are all ports equal.
whereas ..... firewire is firewire is firewire.
Thanks, Gary, I'll try to get this drive swapped for a firewire or firewire/USB2 model if nobody comes up with any suggestions for getting it to work at USB2 speed. As you say, my other external drive, Maxtor, works well via the native Firewire port on my Vaio laptop. I would have been happier, though, if this laCie USB2 drive could have been made to work because I could then swap files beween it and the Maxtor, which I won't be able to do if I get another firewire hard drive since my PC has only got one native firewire port. You mention that your Vaio has a PCI USB2 card -assume you don't mean a PCMCIA card? I thought that all Vaios were laptops but I guess yours must be a desktop. Cheers. Tony
Thanks, Gary, I'll try to get this drive swapped for a firewire or firewire/USB2 model if nobody comes up with any suggestions for getting it to work at USB2 speed. As you say, my other external drive, Maxtor, works well via the native Firewire port on my Vaio laptop. I would have been happier, though, if this laCie USB2 drive could have been made to work because I could then swap files beween it and the Maxtor, which I won't be able to do if I get another firewire hard drive since my PC has only got one native firewire port. You mention that your Vaio has a PCI USB2 card -assume you don't mean a PCMCIA card? I thought that all Vaios were laptops but I guess yours must be a desktop. Cheers. Tony
my vaio is a desktop ........
i also have access to a vaio laptop , it does handle usb2 properly from it's native usb2 ports , but i only use it's usb2 for pen-drives.
whereas ..... firewire is firewire is firewire.
or firewire800
Actually, the IEEE1394 spec for firewire goes up to 3.2Gb/s, but there's no commerial kit for it yet.
or firewire800
if you use a firewire drive , it runs asynchronously ..... at a fixed rate
usb1 and usb2 run in burst mode ...................... max speed , not constant speed