sdcard, sync cable, or usb problem

[thetomas]

I'm having problems with my droid and none of the threads I've found through my google searching have addressed it in a helpful way so I thought I'd ask here.

Using win xp, i've mounted the droid to the computer using the sync cable and, when transfering files such as music, the droid will spontaneously unmount, giving a "the device is not ready" error on the pc. On the droid, the status bar states "preparing sd card" then goes back to normal as if i'd chosen "unmount" from the menu. Remounting the droid and attempting the file transfers again usually results in the same result, though not always after the same amount of time.

The problem seemed to get worse and worse (unmounting sooner and sooner), and after trying several fixes, including: using usbdview to uninstall the usb driver and reinstall (there was more than one instance installed, when uninstalled, it helped slowdown the unmounts), installing the sdk and using the usb drivers and debugging mode, and taking the card out of the droid and attempting to read it in the pc with a normal card reader (wasn't recognized at all, but maybe my card reader is too old to read 16gb cards).

I finally took it into verizon to get a new card, which they provided. After getting home and trying it again, the card went a long time without an unmount, allowing me to copy the backup of the old card back to the new one, but eventually the same behavior began again. It seems to be less bad, there is now only one usb driver visible in usbdview, and it manages to transfer quite a few files before unmounting, but It's still a problem. I tried a different (non oem) sync cable, just a micro usb cable I bought, and it seemed to get better for a while but eventually unmounted on its own again while transferring music.

At this point i'm at a loss for what to try next. two cards and two cables have had this problem, and i've made sure the drivers are correct, so i need suggestions. Could both cards and both cables be bad? or is this a droid software/hardware issue?

Any help provided would be appreciated, thank you.

[thetomas]

I'm feeling pretty stupid at this point, but also relieved, I think i've found my problem.

I completely forgot to consider the usb extension cable running from the back of my computer so that I can reach the port from my desk. After plugging the sync cable directly into the port on the back of the computer, the problem SEEMS to be gone. I've been listening to an mp3 from the card on repeat for a good 20 minutes now, after browsing the directories for a while as well, and it hasn't unmounted yet, so i'm crossing my fingers to hope this lasts.

I just wish it had occured to me to check the simple extension cord before I posted my problem all over the internet, but i guess it's beter late than never.

If the problem comes back, i'll update this thread, but for now I think it might be fixed.

Still, if anyone else is having similar problems i'd love to hear about it, since i read about issues similar to this on a few other forums and none were satisfactorily answered. Do all those people have faulty usb extension cords too?