Computer crashes when copying to USB storage

[Lloyd Hayes]

Problem copying files to/from USB drives. Corrupted internal files on internal drives.
Effects multiple drives, and formats. The drives can be MS NTFS, FAT32, or Linux EXT4. Also effects multiple Linux operating systems and computers. This issue effects external hard drives running NTFS and EXT4 file systems, and memory cards and memory sticks running FAT32 files systems.

I was running Mint 18.2 Cinnamon fine, and had been using Mint for one and a half years. Suddenly almost 3 weeks ago, I was unable to backup my data files to a RAID tower without the files on the backup drive being corrupted. It is connected via a USB3 connection. The backup program is ‘Lucky Backup.’

This effects both USB2 and USB3 devices.

In connecting different portable backup drives where files are copied to them, they result the files copied being corrupted, along with the computer locking up.

The computer had 3 internal drives totaling 4 TB. Suddenly, I was being denied access to 2 of these drives. This was a permission issue that suddenly developed. Running ‘chmod’, I was able to regain permissions to most files, but not all. Also, many of my files had disappeared.

Copying internal files to/from USA drives resulted in corrupted files, or in the computer crashing. I can usually copy about 2 to 6 GB before things go bad. I can be using any external drive or storage device, including memory sticks and memory cards.

In checking the logs, I see in the Auth log that I am constantly being signed out and then back in. Usually I have been just signed out when the computer freezes up. I am being signed out as ‘Root’ and as ‘User’. In the System Log, there are notes from the kernal that the transfer is being interrupted due to it taking too long.

Medium size and large files or groups of files resulting in a large amount of data are impossible to transfer anymore.

Reinstalling Mint solved nothing.

I removed the internal drives and then replaced them with a single 4 TB, I cloned my main drive to the new drive. (I now realize this was a mistake.) Problems continued with Mint 18.2.

I installed UbunbuSudio 17.04. This uses the Xfce desktop. But it was no help.

I then tried the Knoppix 8.1 Live CD. It seemed to work better, but still failed.
Knoppix has the Clam virus software built-in. I ran a scan, and the scan only found issues with files related to Windows.

Running ‘Gpart’ from the Knoppix Live CD, it shows that Gpart is unable to read my boot partition.

Next, we come to a Netbook that I have which is running Mint 18.2 Xfce. It was working fine up until I did a Mint Update using the Update Manager a couple of days ago. I had transferred over 500 GB from one drive to another with it the previous day. There were a bunch of new updates. I install the less serious updates 1st. Then I tried to install the new Linux Header, and an update for Meld. The Meld update worked fine. The Linux Header failed. And right after that, I started having the same problems with USB drives that I had been having with the other Linux computer.

Also, one odd thing. I use a ‘master password’ when using Firefox on this Mint 18.2 netbook. At the same time, and after the update, my password no longer worked with it. I have used the same password with Firefox on every computer that I have owned for the past 20 years. And now that password no longer works on this netbook after an update.

The drives and home folders are encrypted on the netbook. Originally, the drives were encrypted on the Cinnamon computer also. Encryption was taken off when the new 4 TB drive was installed.

Now I have 2 computers with the same problems. Common thing between these 2 computers are that they both run on Linux.

I can reproduce this problem each time that I try to copy files. Some will get copied. Many will be missing. Many will be corrupted. And the computer will freeze up when a group of files or a single file takes more then a couple of minutes to copy. It does not matter which file system is being used by the external storage.

UbuntuStudio is now reporting file system errors when it starts up now, also.

There appears to be a bug somewhere in the basic Linux system.

Repositories being used (In the netbook. Not sure which were used in Cinnamon.) are:
Mint http://packages.linuxmint.com ;
And http://cosmos.cities.illinois.edu/pub/ubuntu

Additional note:
I have been attempting to rescue data files off of the ext4 drives which were previously installed inside the computer. This is highly problematic. I have changed the permissions to me again. And I can get some of them. The smaller files. Many files are missing. Many are corrupted during the transfer to my sda2 drive. And the computer will freeze up when transferring some of them, or when trying to transfer files too large or too many files at one time.

The short version is that I am running into all of the problems of rescuing files off of a crashed hard drive. But I have 3 drives to contend with. Plus there is the issue of my computer's current operating system crashing each time I try to transfer files, (whichever system that I try to use).

Only my older Windows 7 computer is not crashing, and it can't read ext4 file systems.

[Lloyd Hayes (hayeslloyd)]

I just noticed that my RAW files and MOV files get corrupted 90% of the time when they are copied.
I can copy some of my files to an external device. Or I can rescue some of my files from the drives that I removed from this computer after this started. I access them via a USB interface.

But of the files that I thought I had rescued, most of my RAW and MOV files are corrupted. My cameras shoot both RAW and JPG files at the same time, with using the mainly the RAW files. Naturally, I normally copy those files to this computer. I haven't been able to use most of the RAW files that I tried to rescue. The same applies to my MOV files. My cameras shoot MOV video files.

These are files that I either copied from my current sda2 hard drive, or from drives which were among the 3 internal drives that I had until I removed them after these problems started.

Once copied, I again copy them again to another external hard drive using an alternate computer. And since my Mint Xfce computer is also having problems, I am using an older (slower) Windows 7 computer for this.

[Lloyd Hayes (hayeslloyd)]

System failed to transfer file to USB memory-stick. Here is the relevant logs.