Hardware My PC is having trouble recognizing my ext.HDD

[Noctosphere]

Hello
So, I have this external hard drive for about 3 years, and never had any problem so far
But yesterday, before going to sleep, I wanted to watch something on Plex, and all my medias are in this ext. hdd
and when I tryed to launch the media, it said that the file wasn't available
I though, OK, I'll deal with it tomorrow
But today, I realised that my ext. hdd wasn'T recognized by my pc, at all
So, I unplugged it from my usb port and replugged it, it worked... kinda...
First, the icon of my ext.hdd in the My PC page was a blank page
I clicked on it to browse it, it was VERY slow
After few minutes, it all disappeared, my pc couldn't recognize the ext.hdd at all anymore

However, when I unplug it, I do hear the sound my pc does when I unplug something from one of my usb port
I also tryed to reboot my computer, unplugging ext.hdd power... none of this worked

Anyone can tell me what to do please?
Thanks

 

[DBlaze]

Sounds like a dying drive then, if you can, try another PC.
If it gets recognized properly, run a chkdsk on it
And if you do get access to it, backup whatever you can

 

[Noctosphere]

Sounds like a dying drive then, if you can, try another PC.
If it gets recognized properly, run a chkdsk on it
And if you do get access to it, backup whatever you can

problem is that i dont have any other pc
as for backupping everythign i can, I dont have any other ext.hdd
Anyway, I can still redownload everything I got in there, so that's no propblem
So you think my ext.hdd is dying?

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ioh nvm, there's my sdis laptop, ill try on it when she wakes up

 

[DinohScene]

Sounds like a dying drive yeh.
I'd personally gut the external to take the actual HDD out of there and connect it directly to a SATA connection or a media dock.
Even if it's just to eliminate the possibility of a faulty PCB.

 

[Noctosphere]

ok so...
Sorry for the long time without response, my sis laptop is very slow (plus it ahd to update)
And sadly, no, same problem
It recognize it for a minute, very slowly, and then, its like i unplugged it

So... y'all think it's dying?
It really happens like that?
Because few minutes before i try to watch something on plex last night, it was working perfectly fine

Dying can happen in a matter of minutes? really?

 

[Noctosphere]

Sounds like a dying drive yeh.
I'd personally gut the external to take the actual HDD out of there and connect it directly to a SATA connection or a media dock.
Even if it's just to eliminate the possibility of a faulty PCB.

sorry, I don't have the knowledge nor the equipement for that

 

[DinohScene]

Yep, HDDs can technically crash at any time.
Usually they have a MTBF (Mean time between failure) rate of 1-2 million hours but their lifespan is affected by heat/cold/shock/usage, drive corruption can kill the drive.
Problems with the drive's PCB can also cause it to fail.
It's likely that the very same harddrive that is produced after yours might not exhibit any problems at all or it could be DOA.

That being said, harddrives are generally very reliable when handled and stored properly.

Anyway, if there's a lot of data on there that you'd like to retrieve then I'd suggest not plugging it in anymore and have someone with more knowledge take a look at it.

 

[Noctosphere]

Yep, HDDs can technically crash at any time.
Usually they have a MTBF (Mean time between failure) rate of 1-2 million hours but their lifespan is affected by heat/cold/shock/usage, drive corruption can kill the drive.
Problems with the drive's PCB can also cause it to fail.
It's likely that the very same harddrive that is produced after yours might not exhibit any problems at all or it could be DOA.

That being said, harddrives are generally very reliable when handled and stored properly.

Anyway, if there's a lot of data on there that you'd like to retrieve then I'd suggest plugging it in and have someone with more knowledge take a look at it.

alright thanks
Guess I'll have to buy a new one
FML

 

[DinohScene]

Good luck mate.

Sorry about your data loss.

 

[subcon959]

Would be a shame to lose all that data if its just the usb controller that has failed and not the drive itself. I really would look into "shucking" it as a last resort before giving up.

 

[Noctosphere]

Quick question,
could it be a wire problem?

 

[Truche]

Yes checking the cable is of the utmost importance

 

[Noctosphere]

Yes checking the cable is of the utmost importance

lol, i know this guy
I said I bought a new ext hdd because mine broke, a nd he told me to check the wire
I told him I already asked from another site with good reputation with helping with hardware (GBAtemp)
and he was telling me you were fraud
This guy is just trolling me

 

[godreborn]

Could be the enclosure. Also, check in device management as well as disk management. You might also try crystal disk info. If anything is yellow, replace the drive. You might be able to get a replacement. A lot of hdd/ssd makers offer 3-5 year warranties.

 

[Noctosphere]

Could be the enclosure. Also, check in device management as well as disk management. You might also try crystal disk info. If anything is yellow, replace the drive. You might be able to get a replacement. A lot of hdd/ssd makers offer 3-5 year warranties.

I didn'T buy warrenty
And as I said above, prompt command are useless
When I plug it, it detects it for a minute, but I can't browse it
After that minute, it isn't detected at all by my computer

 

[godreborn]

The warranty is a normal one, not extended. The 500gb ssd I have for my laptop offers a 5 year warranty out of the box. Do you have another enclosure or sata station?

 

[Noctosphere]

The warranty is a normal one, not extended. The 500gb ssd I have for my laptop offers a 5 year warranty out of the box. Do you have another enclosure or sata station?

I dont have the material for that kind of procedure

 

[godreborn]

There's also a sata to usb cable, but get a good one.

This is why I have 80tb of storage. I backed up all smaller hard drives 4 times after 3 hdds failed inexplicably.

 

[Truche]

Voilà.

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Voilà !

 

[Kwyjor]

I have a mostly-dead drive. It was giving me problems for a while and then one day I couldn't get it to work anymore: it would be recognized by Windows and spin up, but automatically shut down after about a minute. It is completely unreachable with any software utilities, including Spinrite and Testdisk.

I finally took it to some professionals and they told me it was a firmware problem. Unfortunately the necessary equipment is not really consumer-affordable.


If it's a Seagate drive, then apparently they have a unique serial-debugging interface that can be used to access the firmware directly. (That's how drives for the original XBox were modded, apparently.) I wouldn't want to poke at that myself, though, or at least not without doing a lot more research.