Ubuntu: external hd randomly ejects self

[Boris Morozov]

hi,

i have a external 40gb hd. i had it for a very long time. anyways, it ejects itself at random. the yellow box at the bottom comes up and it says "unsafe device removal"

i always check the back of computer and the hd to make sure the usb cord is secure and it always is. i used to use this hd on mac computers and i never had this problem. only with ubuntu.

what could be the porblem?

thx

 

[Boris Morozov]

oh yes i just remembered another problem i am having. it has to do with my printer.

i use a brother printer. it used to print perfectly fine with no issues. but now, if i print a few pages (not all at once) the printer stops printing. i found taht the solution is unplugging the usb cord from the computer for a while then putting it back in. i reinstalled the driver for the printer too but i still have the pritning issue.

 

[drag]

Sounds like you have flaky USB hardware.

When you get your external harddrive or printer disconnected open up a terminal and type 'dmesg' command to see if it says anything about usb.

dmesg is the way to view kernel messages and it helps troubleshoot things.

Also if you have USB 2.0 supported by your motherboard go into your BIOS and disable support for it and only use the 'slow' USB support. This has helped stabilise a flaky motherboard I have.

 

[Boris Morozov]

thank you

i will do that when my external disconnects or when my printer stops prnting. the external usually disconnects once every 2 or 3 days. when it happens again i will post the results

thanks!