Question Weird behavior of external disk

[hunterczech]

Hello,
my quite prehistorical external disk (WD Passport - 54528 hours, about 12yo) just did weird thing today. It completely locked itself off, couldn't access it at all, it changed its partition to RAW and windows started throwing errors. I tried restarting computer, which now wouldn't post at all - once i plugged external disk off it instantly booted up. I then re-plugged external disk and it started working again all of sudden. Can somebody explain me what the hell just happened please? i'm doing routine checks of all my disks every month or so and this disk, despite being terribly old, have never had any corrupted sectors or any other problems (none of my WD disks has ever gone bad yet - they seem extremely durable lasting easily 10+ years). I of course backed up all my files to my other disk just in case, but I still didn't see any sense in it all. Should I be worried or was it just some random calculations within OS gone wrong moment? From what I know about harddisks, is that it either works, or it's corrupted, thus a time bomb but should be detectable by S.M.A.R.T HDD Sensors. Maybe the sensor is bad and disk is already dying? Windows now doesn't report any problem at all anymore and CrystalDiskInfo shows nothing wrong either.

 

[USAFRet]

For any storage device, be it 1 week old or 12 years old...you need to be doing a comprehensive, automated, backup routine.

For your particular drive....
If we out here said "naa...don't worry. Its OK"

Or, if we said "It's gonna die right now!!!"

...your actions should be exactly the same.
A good backup routine.


It may last another several years.
Or it may die later this afternoon.

 

[mdd1963]

What capacity is it, if 12 years old? 500 GB? (I see 3-4 TB externals for $40-$60 all day long)

If it seemingly still functions, you can use it as a 4rth copy , but, at 12 years old, and having now already thrown you a 'what the ..!' -moment, I'd certainly not be truly relying on it in any meaningful fashion...; not all drives gi8ve any warning of failure; some just work great right up to the time they instantly transition into a proud new existence as proverbial doorstops or paperweights.

 

[Satan-IR]

As said above, there's no telling when hard drives would give up.

Good thing you have backup and no regrets.

On a side note what's "weird" about a 12-year old mechanical drive failing? That drive's been spining at 5,400 RPM for 54,528 hours. That's 17,667,072,000 turns! I think it's done more than enough honestly.

 

[hunterczech]

As said above, there's no telling when hard drives would give up.

Good thing you have backup and no regrets.

On a side note what's "weird" about a 12-year old mechanical drive failing? That drive's been spining at 5,400 RPM for 54,528 hours. That's 17,667,072,000 turns! I think it's done more than enough honestly.

Daaang. What a durable things these WD discs are. I guess it outlived majority of SSDs even.

 

[worstalentscout]

As said above, there's no telling when hard drives would give up.

Good thing you have backup and no regrets.

On a side note what's "weird" about a 12-year old mechanical drive failing? That drive's been spining at 5,400 RPM for 54,528 hours. That's 17,667,072,000 turns! I think it's done more than enough honestly.

so the External HDD was always connected and spinning ?..........why not disconnect the power after use ?

i've a Hitachi External HDD from 2009.................only 170 hours of power up time 😀

 

[Satan-IR]

Daaang. What a durable things these WD discs are. I guess it outlived majority of SSDs even.

Yes it's more a matter of luck than brand. Sometimes you end up with one that lasts and works very long. Sometimes they die withing a few weeks or months.

I've had good luck and bad luck with Seagate, Samsung WD. I still have a working SATA III 80GB Maxtor! The company does not exist anymore (I think was acquired by Seagate) but the drive lives on!

 

[Satan-IR]

so the External HDD was always connected and spinning ?..........why not disconnect the power after use ?

i've a Hitachi External HDD from 2009.................only 170 hours of power up time 😀

Probably but that's up to the user how to utilize the drive.

Note that leaving mechanical drives off for extended periods of time and not letting the motor/spindle work is sometimes the cause of them failing. They need to flex their muscles, or stretch their legs if you like, from time to time.

 

[worstalentscout]

Probably but that's up to the user how to utilize the drive.

Note that leaving mechanical drives off for extended periods of time and not letting the motor/spindle work is sometimes the cause of them failing. They need to flex their muscles, or stretch their legs if you like, from time to time.

many thanks...............i will power it up maybe once a week for like 15mins or more............