Question I think qbittorrent killed my WD external hard drive?

[seeterri]

I recently switched to qbittorrent from utorrent because I heard it was better. The extra features were great and it was running more smoothly, except it kept refusing to shut down (after I right-clicked on the icon and clicked Exit), even Task Manager couldn't kill it. I think the problem is because it kept incessantly rechecking every single torrent? Sometimes it would grind my computer to a halt so I was forced to "choke" my PC to death by holding the power button. Also, the power company were doing some maintenance work so there were a few incidents without power (my laptop's battery is dead so it instantly shuts off when there's no power).

My PC can detect the drive as Local Disk K: but I cannot open it. I cannot right-click the drive to run Error Check because right-clicking just makes Windows Explorer stuck. I've tried right-clicking and then just leaving it overnight and then in the morning there was an error message, "Parameter is incorrect."

I've tried CHKDSK (in Safe Mode) and the result was either nothing happens, or I receive the error message, "Cannot open volume for direct access." The same thing happens with CHKNTFS. I've read that I need to kill any services that prevents me from accessing the drive? But I don't know which service is causing this.

I've tried using AOMEI Partition Manager to scan the drive, but then it got stuck when it tried to lock the drive, so I uninstalled AOMEI. I've also uninstalled qbittorrent.

At first Windows partition manager could detect the drive, but when I finally had the idea to change the Letter of the drive, partition manager cannot open properly unless I unplug the drive. When I replug the drive, partition manager doesn't detect it. Western Digital's Drive Utilities app doesn't detect the drive either. I cannot properly reboot my PC unless I unplug the drive.

Device Manager says the drive is working fine. I've tried updating the driver but Device Manager says there's no better driver. I've tried uninstalling the drive, but the same problem persists.

Impeccable timing, huh? My drive has been dead for a week but when I finally decided to ask for help online, the Crowdstrike meltdown happens.

 

[NedSmelly]

Unlikely it's due to your P2P client software. More likely a hardware fault that's developed either in the USB controller or the drive itself.

At this point I'd back up as much as possible. Then perhaps shuck the drive and try it in a SATA-USB cradle.

 

[seeterri]

Unlikely it's due to your P2P client software. More likely a hardware fault that's developed either in the USB controller or the drive itself.


At this point I'd back up as much as possible. Then perhaps shuck the drive and try it in a SATA-USB cradle.

So it's really dead, huh? 🙁 This is the 2nd My Passport drive that has died on me like this. And the other 3 drives I have have failed WD Drive Utilities' Self Test. 5TB external drives really suck, huh?

I can't back up anything because I can't open the drive. If I take the drive out of its case, that will void the warranty, right?

 

[NedSmelly]

I have 5 of those 5TB portable HDDs and use them regularly. They are 2.5" laptop drives made of glass, and are relatively fragile. Gotta transport and plug/unplug them carefully.

Hard to say if they're really truly dead, based on your info - but I wouldn't be trusting it with any data from here onwards.

 

[seeterri]

I have 5 of those 5TB portable HDDs and use them regularly. They are 2.5" laptop drives made of glass, and are relatively fragile. Gotta transport and plug/unplug them carefully.

Hard to say if they're really truly dead, based on your info - but I wouldn't be trusting it with any data from here onwards.

Sigh. I guess the only thing I can do is start a warranty claim.

Should I try TestDisk before I do that?

 

[NedSmelly]

Sigh. I guess the only thing I can do is start a warranty claim.

Should I try TestDisk before I do that?

Nothing to lose, so why not. Perhaps also try Diskpart in command line, and see if it can see the drive.

Postscript: also try it on another computer.

 

[seeterri]

Nothing to lose, so why not. Perhaps also try Diskpart in command line, and see if it can see the drive.

Follow this guide?

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-and-format-storage-drive-using-diskpart-windows-10

Will erasing the drive make it harder to recover the data?

 

[NedSmelly]

Will erasing the drive make it harder to recover the data?

Yes. Back up what you can before attempting repartitioning / erasing.

But try a different computer first, along with a different USB cable. The diskpart / reformatting advice is around seeing whether you can continue to use the drive afterwards.

 

[BFG-9000]

The 5TB My Passport drives use SED, SMR, 4800rpm 2.5" disks.

SED means the contents are self-encrypted automatically so it is very unlikely opening it will in any way help to recover the data, especially since they are USB-native drives with no translation from SATA. If you don't want SED then you buy WD Elements drives instead.

These things aren't designed to be hammered on continuously as that will have them draw ~2w instead of ~0.5w idle and while that doesn't sound like a lot, there's just not enough ventilation on them for that since they're only rated to 35°C/95°F.

 

[seeterri]

Yes. Back up what you can before attempting repartitioning / erasing.

But try a different computer first, along with a different USB cable.

Diskpart got stuck here.

Testdisk got this far. I don't know what to do next. I typed P but nothing is happening.

The 5TB My Passport drives use SED, SMR, 4800rpm 2.5" disks.

SED means the contents are self-encrypted automatically so it is very unlikely opening it will in any way help to recover the data, especially since they are USB-native drives with no translation from SATA. If you don't want SED then you buy WD Elements drives instead.

These things aren't designed to be hammered on continuously as that will have them draw ~2w instead of ~0.5w idle and while that doesn't sound like a lot, there's just not enough ventilation on them for that since they're only rated to 35°C/95°F.

Thanks for the info. I thought they were normal 2.5" disks in a case.

I can't find WD Elements on Shopee (Malaysian platform). I mean I can find it but the prices are ridiculously low with almost no reviews or units sold which indicates to me that these listings are scams.

Anyway, I want the password encryption, which WED Elements seem to lack?

What about Toshiba Canvio Advance? They are a lot more expensive and it seems the biggest size sold in Malaysia is 4TB.

 

[NedSmelly]

I can't find WD Elements on Shopee (Malaysian platform).

Try Seagate Expansion Portable 5TB

Anyway, I want the password encryption, which WED Elements seem to lack?

Use BitLocker, VeraCrypt, or 7-Zip (with zip file encryption) instead

 

[seeterri]

Try Seagate Expansion Portable 5TB

Use BitLocker, VeraCrypt, or 7-Zip (with zip file encryption) instead

I recently bought a Seagate One Touch. I hope it fares better than the My Passports.

BitLocker requires the professional version of Windows, right? I only have the Home edition.

7-Zip means I have to keep zipping and unzipping files, right?

Does VeraCrypt work on the fly like My Passport's encryption? Like I can read and transfer files and lock/unlock the entire drive whenever I want? Can I use VeraCrypt to cryptographically wipe a drive?

So is TestDisk just stuck? It's been a few hours and nothing has happened, it's just stuck on that screen.

Hmmmm...

"There are several kinds of attacks to which all software-based disk encryption is vulnerable."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeraCrypt