I/O error

Well it would help to know what OS is being used and what the format of the external HDD are.

If you are using 98 it can not read a NTFS partition and even if the external drive is a FAT type partition you still need to install the correct drivers for it to work.

Of course if you are using XP and the files are encrypted you'll have to put the external HDD back onto the original computer where the files where copied from so it can read them.

Col

check the interface cables to the drives, also
some pcs use seperate cards to drive the cable and external unit. You didn't say if it was
on a usb, SCSI firewire or whatever.

It would also be helpful to know the specific i/o error with its corresponding message.

plus you could give us the model number and particulars of the external drives in question.
are these usb drives that require 2 usb connectors in order to power the drive?
are you using usb 2.0 support on your computers?

Thank you to all those who replied. We have trie4d all sugestions to date but still unable to open drive.

Additional information...

Win XP professional system.
Maxtor External 160 GB H/D's with USB 2.0 connectors.
USB 2.0 connections.

Thank you to all those who replied. We have trie4d all sugestions to date but still unable to open drive.

Additional information...

Win XP professional system.
Maxtor External 160 GB H/D's with USB 2.0 connectors.
USB 2.0 connections.

The I/O error is all the information given!

Win XP professional system.
Maxtor External 160 GB H/D's with USB 2.0 connectors.
USB 2.0 connections.

Is nice to know some of the answers to the above questions. What about encryption and if the drives are set to allow only administrators are the PC's that want access in the group on the HD ?

From what I have seen the HD's are locked and as an admin on the PC you will not be able to open the files on the HD as you are not assigned as an admin on the HD !

I have the same drive, Maxtor 160gb LO external HDD, and am having similar problems with XP. it will respond once in a while but usually windows will jut say tht it is workign properly and not let me fix anything. When i try to reformat it will just about finish the formatting process and an error message will simply say 'windows cannot formatt drive.' i'm at the end of my rope, all info on the drive i lost and Maxtor is usless in tech support and customer service.

this is not really an answer rather a plea for help. I have the Maxtor 160 external HD running on USB 2.0 on a HP computer. It was running just fine for over a year, and has a years worth of graphics and photos on it. all of a sudden I am getting the same problem, a non spicific I/O error while Windows XP tells me everything is just fine. Help I really need those files. THe drive is also a firewire and I was wondering if switching from the USB to Firewire might help. Thank you.

this is not really an answer rather a plea for help. I have the Maxtor 160 external HD running on USB 2.0 on a HP computer. It was running just fine for over a year, and has a years worth of graphics and photos on it. all of a sudden I am getting the same problem, a non spicific I/O error while Windows XP tells me everything is just fine. Help I really need those files. THe drive is also a firewire and I was wondering if switching from the USB to Firewire might help. Thank you.

Hi, sorry if this is a bit late, but i have had this problem on my external hard drive as well, being a teenager i was curious to try different things out, first i went into command prompt (run>cmd) and typed help, this brought up a list of options, first i tried to recover the data on the disk because i thought that i had lost it, as this was going through it stopped and told me to run the CHKDSK command to check for errors on that file so this is what i did and the hard drive works fine now

CHKDSK /F (volume path name/letter):

CHKDSK /F G:

Hope this helps