Touchpad goes crazy when USB hard drive plugged in.

[gwlam12]

So my touchpad becomes unresponsive and starts doing its own movement and clicking when I plug my external hard drive into it. This has happened on two computers. If I unplug it, everything is fine again. Does anyone have any idea why? It just started acting up out of the blue.

I can only think of a bad cable or a virus. I'm scanning the drive right now but it is 160GB so will take awhile... so I am just seeing what other ideas are out there.

I don't know if a bad cable can do something like this.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: gwlam12
So my touchpad becomes unresponsive and starts doing its own movement and clicking when I plug my external hard drive into it.

What kind of touchpad allows a HDD to be plugged into it? This is a case of insufficient USB power. Separate them. Use a powered hub for a USB HDD connection.

 

[gwlam12]

Oh sorry. My touchpad on my laptop becomes unresponsive etc when I plug my external hard drive into the laptop.

 

[Turbonium]

Are you keeping your hands off of the touchpad when you plug in the USB drive?

 

[gwlam12]

Yup. It has something to do with the drive. Once I eject the device through Windows, my Touchpad works fine again. I'm going to conclude that a faulty drive is causing this. My other external doesn't give me any problems.

Oh, and it is AC powered so I don't think it is a power issue. Yea, it is an old 3.25" HDD in a 5.25" enclosure.

 

[Rottie]

have you thought about putting 3.23 hdd into 3.23 external enclose (sp?) I dont know if 3.23 in 5.25 can cause problem. Or try update touchpad and usb driver to see if the problems go away.
Does your external hdd enclose comes with firewire port? Try give it a shot.

 

[corkyg]

OK - I would say the issue is more with the external enclosure and not the drive itself Lots of good suggestions - try 'em all. But, also try a different external case.

 

[gwlam12]

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't have the stuff lying around to test with (extra external enclosure / firewire cable). Looks like an enclosure from Newegg is around $20 after tax/shipping. I think I'll try the new external enclosure route. This 5.25" enclosure on my desk is huge. Thanks everyone.