External Drive "crunching" at startup?

[TraceyS/FL]

I've been having really funky issues the last couple of days. LOTS of waiting, and it came out of the blue.

This morning, the 1 external drive (with iTunes library, pictures & digiscrap stuff - all backed-up) was on when i turned on the computer. I never even could DO anything, I could hear the drive "Crunching" - but knew it shouldn't be. I got Activity monitor going - it showed 75% mem free, 90%~ CPU free, disk activity I never got a good read on. I tried dismounting the disk - 1 partition would, the other finally said that it was in use and quit some apps and try again????? NOTHING had launched????

I finally reached over and turned the computer off - the drive stopped crunching, and then i turned it off and rebooted. All is well now....

But i'm afraid to turn the drive on. What the HECK is it doing?? I bought some digiscrap files but hadn't expanded them yet (unless Safari is doing that again for me). I'm guessing one of them could have some virus - but i'd be surprised at that (i bought from one of the big sites).

HELP!!!!! LOL!!!

eMac 1.25ghz, 1gb RAM, running 10.4.8.

OH, i have had some funky USB issues before - and this is a USB drive, but I can't see that being the case either?!?!?!

 

[TraceyS/FL]

OK, so i turned it back on - the partition that would dismount showed up in my finder window right away, the other "crunched" some more and finally did - killing "finder" to not responding for awhile though.

My mom walked out and didn't think it sounded normal either (then had to explain to me what to do in XP ).

The files I DL'd are still zipped, and it's quiet now.....

I don't know - it was just WAY WEIRD and out of the ordinary (note, i'm so NOT having a good computer month - so losing a drive to something like this would be par for the course).

I guess i'll double check my back-up of all that crap..... which i'd done when i corrupted the OTHER drive a week ago..... I swear, it's really NOT my month@

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

I'm confused. The external caused the system to hang?

One of my older external DVD drives did that, it turned out to be a bad IDE bridge.. If you've had problems with your USB, that could be causing problems too.

Are all of your drives functioning now?

 

[TraceyS/FL]

Yup, writing/reading to the external (for NO REASON on bootup) basically killed the computer.

It seems fine now - i've left it on most of the day (using some files on it), no more out of control "use".

I'm just completely perplexed. In all my years of using external drives (i'm not telling how much that 30mg for the SE cost in the late 80's! LOL) i've seen encountered anything like this.

I wish I could pinpoint the USB issues - is there a way to check those? I've just had various issues with card readers not working, printers disappearing. I'm still covered under Apple Care - but i'm about an hour from the Apple Store and well, this eMac is kinda heavy to "lug" in for a random problem.

I do have everything backed up on it - but still, i hate to lose it.

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

If your covered I'd give them a call and see what they think. You paid for AppleCare, why not use it?

Sometimes my external devices start off temperamental, but regain full functionality and work happily ever after. Funny how that works.

 

[WillJS]

Try checking the UBS connections:

Try checking the UBS connections:

Applications > TechTool Deluxe (it came on my MacBook) Its scans the USB drives.

Remembered you had eMac so it maybe doesn't have it?