Question I have a "My Book" WD external HDD that is sometimes non responsive, gives errors and cannot be recognized at times by TV and PC, what to do?

[MutantMike]

It checks out, nothing corrupt and just cannot figure it out. I have 7 other WD externals I use on the TV, PC, etc but they are all "elements" and not "By Book" external HD;s


I did format the drive a few days ago and I am using it as back up for some important files and now I am very worried


There ARE NO WD utilities on it anymore, could that be a problem?

Here is model WDBFJK0040HBK-04

 

[punkncat]

If the unit is beyond return, shuck it from the enclosure and see if it works properly as an 'internal' drive.

 

[Moonstick2]

I did format the drive a few days ago and I am using it as back up for some important files and now I am very worried.

If you're doing backups properly you shouldn't be worried at all.

If you're doing the minimum 3-2-1 backup or otherwise have your original files, your copies on this drive and another set of copies on something else, you should be fine for the time being until you sort this out.

If you've got your original files and your only other copies are on this drive then that's not ideal, and you should make another set of copies on one of those other drives if you can, but while you should do it sooner rather than later it's still not a big worry.

If this drive is your only copy of your files then that's not a back-up and is a bigger problem. You should try and copy the data from it as soon as possible.

 

[Misgar]

There ARE NO WD utilities on it anymore, could that be a problem?

No. The utilities have no effect on the working (or non working) status of the drive.

I have a bunch of 4TB, 6TB and 8TB Seagate and WD external USB drives and they all get very hot in use (as in over +55°C). Aiming a large desktop fan over the drives cools them down.

I no longer trust these external hard disks with anything important. For a start they use USB3 and I've had problems with drive communications cutting out due to USB cable length. I now use short (30cm/1ft) USB cables.

When using external USB drives of any sort (HDD and SSD) to back up critical files, I run a byte-by-byte comparison of all files after transfer using FreeFileSync, to check that no corruption has occurred.

On top of that, spinning hard disks can sustain damage if bumped or knocked during operation and I hate to think what would happen if a USB drive toppled over (head crash).

Add to this list the fact that many of these external drives are SMR and not CMR and I've abandoned them as a means of backup. SMR slows things down considerably on "well used" disks. My USB drives contain old archive data which is backed up multiple times elsewhere. I haven't used them seriously for years. Too slow, too hot, too dodgy.

"My Book" WD external HDD that is sometimes non responsive, gives errors and cannot be recognized at times by TV and PC.​

The non resposive problem could be down to USB. If your Windows? PC is set to power down all USB Hubs (to save power when idle) then some external devices may not reappear when polled again by the OS. I disable all power saving options for USB in Device Manager.

Many TVs "reformat" external drives, making them unrecognisable when connected to a Windows PC. You may have to reformat a TV drive before it becomes visible in Windows. TVs might use FAT32 or exFAT and some proprietary data encryption. Windows will probably format NTFS. Then of course there's iOS.

As I said above, your USB cables may be too long. Forget the 1m/3ft lead supplied with the drive. Buy something less than 0.5m/1ft6in long.

The drive may be corrupted. Pending blocks, bad blocks, MFT corruption, who knows? It might be on its last legs. Nothing lasts forever.

On a Windows PC, run CHKDSK /F /R on the offending drive.
https://www.howtogeek.com/1033/how-to-use-chkdsk-on-windows/

Consider a full surface Read scan using a trial copy of Hard Disk Sentinel (takes many hours).
https://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/61_surfacetest.html

You cannot claim a drive is fully working unless you run some serious (time consuming) SMART tests.

 

[MutantMike]

If the unit is beyond return, shuck it from the enclosure and see if it works properly as an 'internal' drive.

So I decided to start over, this time formatted the drive to "exfat" and it is working fine on the PC. Transferring everything back onto to it now. I cannot use it on the TV now but that is cool, it can just be back up only

Any reason it works fine now using exfat?

 

[Misgar]

Any reason it works fine now using exfat?

It should also work if you re-format it to NTFS (again?). It's the default format for Windows and has certain advantages over exFAT. For general use I wouldn't bother changing.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-exfat-and-ntfs/

exFAT has taken over from FAT32 as the "universal" format readable by many devices. The native Windows format was "restricted" to 32GB, but numerous third-party programs allow you to format much higher capacities with FAT32.

Checking my new TV's instructions, it said I should format my 512GB external USB (hard disk) drive with FAT32. It seemed daft, but I followed the instructions. Normally I would have used exFAT for non-Windows systems.

I've just completed some 8 hour (per drive) non-destructive "read-only" scans on a bunch of 4TB server "pulls" using Hard Disk Sentinel. A mixture of WD, WD Red, WD Gold and HGST. One drive had only 1 days use, others had over 2,900 days. I won't be using these for valuable data.

One of the drives immediately showed up with errors in Hard Disk Sentinel as soon as I switched on the test computer. Pending Sector fault. At the end of the 8-hour test, it had marked 3 Bad Blocks and found 22 additional Pending Sectors. This disk is going for scrap at a recycling centre.

If you value your data and have even the slightest doubt about any of your hard disks, run a long surface (read-only) scan with a trial copy of Hard Disk Sentinel.

https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_trial.php

CAUTION: Remember to run the non-destructive Read-Only tests, which (theoretically) leave all your data intact. It's a very good idea to have other backups before proceeding.


If you get a scan result like this, breathe a sigh of relief. Your drive is probably OK at this moment in time.

A collection of red squares and you're potentially in deep trouble, if any of your data is in those Bad areas.

If you see something like this, abandon hope if you don't have other copies of your data on other media.