Question My laptop is an external drive exterminator....

[FrenchyfromPA]

OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 Home, 64 bit, Build 19042, Installed 20201203114320.000000-300
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx, AMD64 Family 23 Model 24 Stepping 1, CPU Count: 8
Total Physical RAM: 8 GB
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon(TM) Vega 8 Graphics
Hard Drives: C: 475 GB (51 GB Free);
Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. X512DA, ver 1.0, s/n L833NBCV00A3SHMB
System: American Megatrends Inc., ver ASUS - 1072009, s/n L8N0CV09V35633G
Antivirus: Windows Defender, Enabled and Updated

Hi, I posted before other threads on this site concerning my problems connecting external drives with my laptop and I have to start all over again because what is happening is getting more and more confusing and don't make any sense at all....

I bought an Asus Vivobook 15 in early December and everything was working fine until I started noticing some problems with my external drives.... It started with my WD 3TB Elements USB 3.0 and I had some freezing and stuttering problems when I played some video files from that drive on my laptop and it kept disconnecting until I plugged it in again and there nothing anymore happening, however the disk inside was still spinning and the light was on. That external drive had a healthy status on CrystalDisk. Some people on this site told me that it was probably a mechanical issue with the heads or something like that. So I put aside for the meantime. Then I ordered a new portable/external drive from BestBuy "Easystore 2TB external USB 3.0" that I received on December 22. I started to work on it and was transferring a movie file with a AC3 audio track with MKVToonix when I got an error message "could not write to the destination file :433 - a device which does not exist was specified). In progress I read "failed" and it's stucked at 98%. In "This PC the drive doesn't appear anymore in "devices and drives" but I still see it connected in the taskbar. In Device Manager - Universal Bus Serial Bus Controllers I see the exclamation point "Unknown USB Device (port reset failed) and in General "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43) A USB port reset request failed. And there we go AGAIN!!!... In CrystalDisk the health status was good and following some advices from people on some forums I ran an extended WD Diagnostic software and after two hours it stopped and I got the message "too many bad sectors - failed", I just bought it two weeks ago.... So yesterday I went back to BestBuy to return it and bought another WD 3TB Elements USB 3.0 external drive and this morning I plugged in it, it didn't install anything but I got the message "device not recognized...." and it disconnected the drive. I tried one more time and this time the drive appeared in "This PC" but two minutes later it disconnected again... I'm getting tired of this... I can plug any of my other drives and I have even another WD 3T Elements USB 3.0 that I've been using for a while and there's no problem with them but with some it's a mess and especially with any new ones I want to use. I'm thinking there is a problem with the system of my laptop but I have no clue what it is....

Thanks for your help,

Serge

 

[Grobe]

Well - the thing about external hdd is that they're very fragile and shouldn't be moved around once connected.

The read/write head inside and the disk have very small and delicate parts, and the disk spin very fast. So delicate that it's hard to wrap the mind around. Think of a starship that can reach near speed of light. Then imagine you let this spaceship go in orbit of earth at that speed (yes I know it's impossible but forget about that just for a moment) - but only like some few feet from the ground. Only a very little disturbance will cause utterly crash and damage to the weasel.

Same with hard drives - in a smaller scale, it's just a layer of gas counting a few number of molecules that separate the read/write head from the surface of the platter. That is your space ship you're messing with

 

[FrenchyfromPA]

Well - the thing about external hdd is that they're very fragile and shouldn't be moved around once connected.

The read/write head inside and the disk have very small and delicate parts, and the disk spin very fast. So delicate that it's hard to wrap the mind around. Think of a starship that can reach near speed of light. Then imagine you let this spaceship go in orbit of earth at that speed (yes I know it's impossible but forget about that just for a moment) - but only like some few feet from the ground. Only a very little disturbance will cause utterly crash and damage to the weasel.

Same with hard drives - in a smaller scale, it's just a layer of gas counting a few number of molecules that separate the read/write head from the surface of the platter. That is your space ship you're messing with

Hi Grobe,

Thanks for your reply and explanation. Yesterday I did a factory reset, I restored Windows without removing my files. It's a pain in the butt but now the new drive is working fine. I know I have a more serious problem to resolve with the other WD Element drive but it's a mechanical problem...