Just to add my experience.
I have a VIA based motherboard with on board HPT 370 raid (where my hard disk are connected) as well as a VIA PCI USB 2.0 add on card.
When I copy from the Compact drive attached to the PCI USB 2.0 add on card, I might get time out after some time, and that time is quite random.
If the number of files copied is big like a few GB, then almost certain will hit, but if small like a few photos, then unlikely. 100-200MB is a 50-50 chance.
I don't get hang as in the whole computer hang, "just" the copy operation failed, so I am wondering if that is other's experience.
Plug the compact drive to my laptop which is intel chipset USB solution, perfect sailing. Perhaps I could have tried connecting the Compact drive to the laptop and on the PC I map the compact drive as a drive
I have used a couple of other USB2.0 drive casing for 2.5" hdd as well as USB2.0 card reader on this VIA PCI USB 2.0 card and never had a problem, so it might be that the compact drive has some compatibility issue with VIA based USB 2.0 solution.
Renegade, is your motherboard using VIA chipset for USB? If so you might want to try an PCI USB2.0 card (non-VIA of course, perhaps NEC?).
Also note that some motherboard have multiple USB ports, which are handled by different chips, of which some might be non VIA. If so you can try those as well..........If you are not sure, you can state your motherboard model and version, I believe some of us here can confirm for you.