External FW & USB HD Problems

Sorry for the long post. I have a Dimension 4550, 768MB RAM, two internal WD HD and two DVD burners. I bought a WDJB 320GB HD and a Venus DS3 FireWire 1394-USB 2.0 external enclosure to store my TiVo video files. HD set as Master one drive on cable = no jumpers as per WD and the enclosure instructions.

But, I am having major problems with the 1394 connection being lost, "network connection no longer available" and "Windows delayed write fails the data has been lost" with the drive. I have a Adaptec PCI DuoConnect USB-Firewire card (Device ID TI OHCI IEEE 1394 Host) with an internal power connector to the PC power supply, which has worked fine for everything else. The drive showed up in drive management, initialized, buttigned drive letter and full formatted no problem. Just doesn't work for file storage!

I have been Googling and on M$ Support site looking for a fix. I found KB885464 and called M$ for Hotfix WindowsXP-KB885464-x86-enu.exe which I installed, but I am still having the same problems. The Hotfix also extracted another file, WindowsXP-KB885464-x86-Symbols-enu.exe, which I did not install. Do I need to also install the "Symbols" file? I called M$ and not if the Hotfix doesn't work! They want $$ support to Fix the Hotfix!

I had write cache enabled for better performance and then reset it to fast removal no write cacheing, no luck. I know the quick answer is use the USB connection, but I wanted the faster-better FireWire connection (I know debatable), which I also have an open connection. Should I reformat the drive, since there probably is data corruption with all these errors? Or should I try chkdsk with the fix option? Unfortunately, I don't trust this drive for any important data now.

Any help greatly appreciated, this is driving me nuts! Pat