WD20EARS-00MVWB0 Westerd Digital Cavier Green 2TB

marksb - Your tests so far suggest that the connection speed is somehow related (or possibly half duplex/full duplex negotiation).. it would be useful to try a direct connection, but manually set the speed on the PC NIC card to 100 mbits.

PapaBear wrote:

According to Netgear and other network device manufacturers, unmanaged desktop devices such as the GS105, FS105, FS605 and GS605 and similar devices are called swiches not hubs, yet since it is unmanaged, it cannot be configured either. Looking at on line computer retailers, most the devices listed as hubs under the networking heading are USB, however, there are others that are firewire or serial, but none listed are ethernet. So if it is an ethernet device, it is a switch. And while you may think the signal goes to all ethernet ports, the activity light will only be active on the port to which the device with the correct IP address is connected. It would still be helpful to know the make and model of the switch/hub.

Papabear - Ethernet hubs in fact do exist, though they are decidedly old-school (and I don't know of anyone making them now) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_hub. Back in the late 90s, Netgear did make them (EN104TP/EN106TP/EN108TP). Programmers who do network stuff tend to hang onto them, since they are quite convenient for taking protocol traces (the fact that they do send all the traffic to all the ports is quite convenient for that). Port mirroring on a smart switch can also be used of course, but smart switches are fairly expensive.

However, I agree that the device is more likely to be an unmanaged switch. It might be interesting to know the model, but perhaps not all that useful for solving the main problem, since both the router and the switch/hub provoked the same error.