Win7 x64 large copy File creation error - The semaphore timeout period has expired

I have spent all day trying to copy a 680GB file from an NTFS USB3.0 drive (Disk #2 below) to an NTFS USB2.0 drive (Disk #3 below) with plenty of free, unfragmented space.

I have tried it in both Windows Explorer and from command prompt using xcopy /J. The latter, after about an hour, reports,

    File creation error - The semaphore timeout period has expired.

I have tried the following to fix this:

1. Turned off all power-saving features
2. Updated my USB drivers
3. Tried this

Here is my MSINFO32. Let me know of anything else I might check to debug or workaround:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model To be filled by O.E.M.
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3225 CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3300 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical    Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. F9, 8/22/2012
SMBIOS Version 2.7
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 15.5 GB
Available Physical Memory 7.99 GB
Total Virtual Memory 30.9 GB
Available Virtual Memory 21.8 GB
Page File Space 15.5 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Drive #2: Manufacturer (Standard disk drives) Model Fantom External HDD USB Device Bytes/Sector 4096 Media Loaded Yes Media Type Removable media Partitions 1 SCSI Bus Not Available Sectors/Track 63 Size 2.73 TB (3,000,582,144,000 bytes) Total Cylinders 45,600 Total Sectors 732,564,000 Total Tracks 11,628,000 Tracks/Cylinder 255 Partition Disk #2, Partition #0 Partition Size 2.73 TB (3,000,457,232,384 bytes) Partition Starting Offset 135,266,304 bytes

Drive #3: Manufacturer (Standard disk drives) Model Fantom External HDD USB Device Bytes/Sector 512 Media Loaded Yes Media Type Removable media Partitions 1 SCSI Bus Not Available Sectors/Track 63 Size 1.82 TB (2,000,396,321,280 bytes) Total Cylinders 243,201 Total Sectors 3,907,024,065 Total Tracks 62,016,255 Tracks/Cylinder 255 Partition Disk #3, Partition #0 Partition Size 1.82 TB (2,000,396,289,024 bytes) Partition Starting Offset 32,256 bytes

The problem is USB3.0 specific.

From my experience, what seems to happen is that somehow, the USB3.0 drivers get corrupted when you attach new USB3.0 devices in some cases.

I had the same problem in Windows 10. I uninstalled USB3.0 drivers and rebooted and Windows automatically reinstalls the appropriate drivers.

The problem creeps back in when I use different USB3.0 hardware, especially flash drives. Each time, my solution has been to reinstall the USB3.0 drivers. Hope that helps.

It appears that this problem was related to USB drivers and/or USB3.0. I happened to connect my USB3.0 drive to a USB2 port and the problem disappeared.