External Hard Drive Problem

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1

First post on this superb site; unfortunately it's a technical issue query..

For quite a while now, my 2Tb WD external hard drive has been disconnecting at very random intervals, and although I should have become fed up with the issue earlier, it is getting to be unbearable now. I am also concerned that should it happen during a file transfer, it may corrupt a load of the data on it, which thankfully hasn't happened yet.

It doesn't appear to be any issue with a physical connection - I can jiggle each end of the USB cable and the power cable without triggering a lost connection, so I would assume this must be a power related issue?

 

My computer specs for this computer are as follows:

OS: Windows 7 Home Edition (legal)

CPU: AMD 1100t Black Edition with a Titan Fenrir cooler

RAM: 8Gb of 1600mhz Kingston HyperX

GPU: Palit GTX 570

HDD: 1Tb 7200RPM WD Caviar Black

PSU: Everest 1010w

Mobo: Asus M4N98TD

Case: Coolermaster HAF 922

The external hard drive is plugged into one of the motherboard's USB 2.0 ports, and only an Xbox 3shitty controller and a (cough) mac keyboard and lenovo mouse are plugged into other USB 2.0 ports. I wouldn't think these could be sucking sufficient power to cause this issue with the external, but I really have no idea..

Any help and insight is greatly appreciated, as I am at a loss as to what I can do to resolve this issue.

Cheers.

2

sounds like its dying, do a diskchk and do a bad sector recovery on it and or turn off your usb suspend in your power manegement options menu from the control panel. if the problem persists i would look into a new external. im using a 200gb external that does exactly the same thing, a 5 year old 2.5 drive on a dock. so iv temporarily decomissined it, and im gonna buy a new one

3

Thanks for the help; sadly the problem is not resolved in spite of either of these - I guess I'll slap an order on something to replace it. Shame that it's barely lasted a year! At least ordering another external will likely get me to finally invest in an SSD...

4

well take a look at a segate drives, they are a much safer bet than wd. i would also reccomend a dock config, they are much more flexible with what you can do with em. and yeah an ssd is a worthwhile invest, mind i would put replacing your hdd at the top of the list. lossing large amounts of valuable data is a pain in the rear