Problem: Anywhere from a few hours, to a couple days, my new USB hdd spontaneously disconnects. Sometimescycling power on the drive or reconnecting the cable resets it, rebooting the system always does. I want to have it stably connected.
Gear: Inspiron 660s that shipped with Windows 8. Currently running 8.1. Subsequently bought the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STCA4000100). hdd has never maintained connection for much more than a day.
What I've tried.
- I have been in contact for weeks with Seagate support. They blame Windows.
- When running under a Lunix boot disc, the disconnect problem does not occur.
- Seagate says changes in W8.1 are the cause. We disabled all power saving settings in Seagate Dashboard, USB Device Manager, Power
- No updated hdd firmware available
- installed latest drivers from Dell
- Seagate Dashboard utility passes diags.
- Problem happens on either USB 2.0 or 3.0.
- Power and cabling seems solid
- directly plugged into back of computer.
- Installed http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2911106 which addresses kb/2914219. No change in problem
