[ale] help - how do I test usb ports, loopback, pc-pc

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi all,

Got a bit of a weird request.  I did a backup to an external hdd on my laptop connected via usb.  Then, afterwards I did a checkdisk on the backup disk and found errors.  I then tried running a spinrite analysis on the external hdd and the computer crashes hard.  I know the spinrite is good, and I even tried two different cd's of that.  I put a 2ND external drive on the same machine and ran spinrite and the machine locks up.

There's more to the story.  I took both external hdd's to my desktop machine and am able to run spinrite analysis on them without a hitch.  Both drives work fine.

I think something has happened to the USB controller on my laptop.

So, the question is, I need a way to do extensive USB port data integrity testing, first via loopback from port to port on the same machine, then via port to port on two different machines.  I also tried switching cables on the hdd that was crashing hard.  I also did a short ram test on the pc.

One tends to always assume these things just work.  But, in my case, I need to thoroughly test these ports so I know if I can trust them.  I suspect that my backup is flawed at this point and all the USB ports on the laptop are not trustworthy.

Any help is always appreciated.

Sincerely,

Ron



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Ron Frazier
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