Is my external harddrive failing?

[BigFattyPlus]

About a week ago, I had my computer off and unhooked everything to clean it. I hooked everything back up and thought everything was fine. Then yesterday, I was having issues editing footage that I have on my external harddrive. At first, I thought it was Windows Movie Maker. It would take forever to load up footage and save it.

But today, I was moving some footage TO it, and it used to take very little time to move it, but now it's taking a VERY long time to move it.

Is my harddrive failing, or did I screw up by unhooking it while it was off? How can I save it or should I just get a new one?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there BigFattyPlus,

As you think that there may be something wrong with your drive, you better back up the data stored over there.
After that, you can test it with some of these: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
Just upload the screenshot of the SMART report to an image hosting website and post the link.

Also, I believe it will not hurt to attach the drive with a different USB cable to another USB port.

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD

 

[ITgik91]

Did you try to re-scan your disk by build in utility to fix bad sectors ? I also suggest to re-check this disk on different computer to have clear situation that this is disk issue not the computer

 

[D_Know_WD]

@ITgik91 The chkdsk command could result in data loss, if the drive is failing. This is why, I believe that the first thing the OP needs to do is to just get the important data off the drive.
Then yeah, I believe the OP can run disk check as well.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[BigFattyPlus]

Yeah, I have to wait until I get my paycheck to afford another HD and an enclosure to connect the two. I don't have access to another PC to check it on, sadly. A friend reccomended me a Western Digital Red HD, I just need an external enclosure for multiple harddrives, and take the Seagate out of it's enclosure.