External HDD problems

[Domagoj Petrovic]

Hi,
I use my 2TB toshiba external drive (3.5 with its own power) as a storage/player for movies and it is located on a stand above my LED TV in a SWEEX case. I never move it, just reconnect it to my computer when transfering new movies. It was 70 % full with movies. It is 1.5 years old and I watch it allmost every day (one movie). It is pretty responsive, never lags or anything. I turn it on only when watching, the rest of the time it is off. Yesterday it wasn't recognised by the TV so I connected it to a computer and it wasn't recognised by it either. In computer management it listed as RAW and it offered me to format it. I used EASE US for recovering movies to computer hdd (only more important half of them). Then I formatted it (quick). Now I'm doing a „checking disc“ with both options checked (automatically fix... and scan for bad sectors....). It is taking too long but....
My question is, should I do a full format and will it benefit the disc so this doesn't happen again, or is the disc „over“ so should I replace it because it is only 1.5 years old and isn't used much?

 

[WebBeachBoy]

No - I think that the disk is OK. The normal problems with these external disks are:
1) The adaptor fails
2) the cheap and nasty internal circuit board fails so the light is "On' but the computer fails to recognise the disk &
3) You have unplugged it before unmounting it. You should ALWAYS unmount an external disk first before disconnecting it or what you describe may happen.
Have you already formatted it ? If not I would suggest that you buy another external housing unit ($10 or so) and transfer the actual hard disk to that, then plug it into the computer to check what information it can read then.

 

[Domagoj Petrovic]

As I said already, I have formatted it - quick format and the check disc is finally over; it said: Your device or disk was succesfully scaned, no problems were found on the device or disk. It is ready to use.
I don't think the computer fails to recognise it, it just fails to recognise it as a NTFS volume but does as RAW.
I allways do unmount it from the computer but not from the TV. Maybe that's the thing. Could maybe that be the problem?! Should I turn the TV off before unpluging the disc from it?
I will load it with movies again, and if it does it again, I'll buy new housing.
I remember now, it did warn me a couple of times though. Last couple of days, as I connected it to the computer, it offered to format it, and I refused, but continued working on it with no problems.