Seagate USB 3.0 drive keeps disconnecting and remounting

[imrazor]

I have a Seagate 1TB USB 3.0 Expansion Drive (see signature for other hardware.) Ever since I upgraded to Windows 10, it has an annoying habit of disconnecting and then remounting. When it remounts, Windows Explorer pops up over whatever I'm doing, even full screen activities like gaming or video playback.

It worked fine under Windows 7, and seems to exhibit no problems whatsoever under Linux, to it doesn't appear to be a hardware problem. Can anyone suggest a solution for this? Maybe there's just a way to keep Windows Explorer from popping up when it remounts?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I clean installed 10 on my PC in the livingroom , because of a similar issue with a WD My book.

Not sure why but it stopped after that.

 

[dgingeri]

I have a similar issue with a 4TB Seagate drive, but it started long before Windows 10 came out. It's the drive, not the OS. Shortly before Windows 10 came out, mine started completely disconnecting, and only a full power cycle would bring it back. The only USB drives I have been able to keep operational have been the little WD Passport and Element drives. All the others I've had went bad in 18-24 months.

 

[imrazor]

I clean installed 10 on my PC in the livingroom , because of a similar issue with a WD My book.

Not sure why but it stopped after that.

Win10 was an upgrade for me, so I may give that a try, but a reinstall would be pretty painful.

I've done some more research on it, and it may be a power saving issue. I've tried disabling hard drive sleep mode in my Power Options. I won't know for a while if it works or not.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Hope that works , didn't for me , but better than a full reinstall , hope it works , keep us posted.

 

[imrazor]

I also found a way to suppress Windows Explorer. Go to Start>Settings>Devices>Autoplay. Go to "Removable Drive", and change it from "Open folder to view files (File Explorer)" to "Take no action". Hopefully between this and changing the Power Options, my games won't be interrupted any more.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Let me know if it works out.

 

[imrazor]

Well, it hasn't exactly worked out. No more popups in the middle of gaming, but after my PC woke from sleep this afternoon, it told me that I needed to format drive F:. I unplugged and replugged the drive, and it mounted normally. Fortunately all my files were still there. Just weird...

I'm going to try turning sleep mode back on for the hard drive, but leave Autoplay disabled and see what happens.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Very strange , hope it resolves soon.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

This: http://websupport.wdc.com/newSupport/KnowledgeBase/answer.aspx?ID=9588

It's a known USB 3.0 chipset/driver issue.

 

[imrazor]

Thanks ex_bubblehead. Do you know if there's a specific tool for Seagate drives, as opposed to WD drives, to disable power management? In the meantime, I went to Device Manager, found the device "USB Root Hub (xHCI)" and disabled power management. Hopefully that'll fix it.

I'm curious why this wasn't happening under Windows 7 or Linux...? That made me think it wasn't hardware related.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

You'd need to contact Seagate about that. The problem does, in fact, occur in Linux, with the WD Green drives, but not with any of my 500GB Seagates.