Very bizarre issue with external drive

[Ultranothing]

Hi, all! I have been having the weirdest problem with my WD My Passport 2TB external HDD. I hope that someone might help shed some light on it, because I'm stumped...

It's a USB3 drive. It's primarily used on a Windows 7 (x64 Ultimate) laptop which hasn't been moved in over a year. It's hooked up via HDMI to a TV in our home.

The drive has been attached to the laptop and chugging along for months. No problems. About a week ago I took it to the office to play some old DOS games because I'm what you call a "company man". Anyway, end of my grueling day I take the drive back home and plug it in. Nothing. I forget about it and notice that about an hour later, the drive appears in my list. When I double-click, the computer hangs for several minutes before I can finally see the contents of the drive, but the seek time is so slow as to be not usable.

End of the day I go to shut down the system and Windows is hanging at the "Shutting down" screen. That is, until I unplug the drive. Then the computer shuts down.

If I try to boot the PC with the drive attached, it will hang at a black screen until the drive is unplugged, whereupon the start menu, etc., will load.

If I try to open or close a program with the drive attached, said program will not open or close until the drive is removed.

Online, if I click on a link or enter a web address with the drive attached, the link or site will not appear until the drive is removed.

The same symptoms have appeared on two other Windows PC when trying to use this drive. Both W7 and W8.

The closest I've got to usability for this drive is on my Ubuntu Linux system at work. It will recognize the drive (after several minutes) takes a half hour + to mount, and then access and seek times are slow to the point of ...why bother.

The drive can be discovered by some disk utilities, and S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics list the drive as healthy.

It's just such a strange issue to me. I'm sure someone here whose knowledge is infinitely more will read this and say, "Oh, it's your boot sector partition boondogle XG9Q, Duh!" but for me? I've never seen anything like it, and I'm kinda old -- in computer years.

So...little help?

 

[C4C]

I notice the start up issue with some USB devices on my laptop..

bump

 

[Ultranothing]

I notice the start up issue with some USB devices on my laptop..

bump

Well Hidely-hodely, neighborino! Thanks for the bump-a-rooni!

 

[johnb35]

I would say something happened to the drive during transport and is going bad on you. You can run western digital drive diagnostic on it and see what it reports.

 

[Ultranothing]

I would say something happened to the drive during transport and is going bad on you. You can run western digital drive diagnostic on it and see what it reports.

Hi, and thanks for the reply!

I've had drives go bad on me before, but they've never exhibited these symptoms. I mean, it...stops...the internet? It literally will load the page immediately after unplugging the drive. The "please hold" icon when I log in here will just spin forever, until I unplug the external drive.

One thing I noticed when I hooked it up to an Ubuntu machine was that it looked like somehow the drive name was changed...? I don't remember the exact name, but it appeared to be just a random string of letters and numbers after the actual drive name.

Yeah, I'll try the WD drive tool. I've also got Paragon HD Manager 15 I'll give a go with.

Let me unplug my drive so I can submit this message

 

[ninjabubbles3]

Just hazarding a guess, but nalware on the drive could be taking resources away from your tasks.

 

[Ultranothing]

Just hazarding a guess, but nalware on the drive could be taking resources away from your tasks.

Yeah, see, I was thinking that. Could malware or a virus exist in such a way on an external HDD that it can affect the host system so immediately? Or cause itself to not be recognized? Or...whatever?

--

Also, tried running the WD Diagnostic tool. It scans for drives, then closes itself. Over, and over and over again. Tried running it three times. It's not happening.

 

[Ultranothing]

Allright, Okay. Does THIS mean anything to anyone?

I ran Paragon Tools (with the drive plugged in) and it just sat there at the main logo screen until I unplugged the drive. THEN, the software instantly opened with this message:

"Paragon Hard Disk Manager™ could not be started because some product that uses the Hard Disk Engine must be already running.
Please close that program first and try again."

Hard Disk Engine...hmm...

WD LifeGuard Diagnostics software tool WILL NOT LOAD unless the drive is unplugged, which, as you can imagine isn't going to work out very well for its' intended purpose.

Anyway, back to this "Hard Disk Engine," which is probably a dead end but let's look into it...

This thread here http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/paragon-b-r-2011-advanced-free-startup-problem.302657/ says that Paragon will not load because their external HDD is plugged in, but NOBODY seems to have a clue and the thread ends abruptly.

This thread here http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/7062 is also a dead end...

Someone told me to run SFC /SCANNOW from an elevated CMD prompt and check for corrupted system files. So I opened an elevated command prompt, entered "sfc /scannow" at the prompt and...nothing happened. Until, that is, I realized the external HDD was plugged in. Once I unplugged it, of course the verification process began immediately...

 

[Ultranothing]

Okay, so the whole "Hard Disk Engine" thing was totally a dead-end. It was an internal conflict with Paragon's software which is completely useless to me at the moment, as it won't load with the external drive plugged in...which I kinda need it to.

Windows integrity check, SFC /SCANNOW didn't find any errors. So that's not it...

 

[johnb35]

But the issues start when the drive is attached to the system. As a last resort, copy over any data you don't want to lose and totally wipe the drive using kill disk or dban and see what happens. Also, can you physically take the drive out of the case and see if it runs properly?

 

[Ultranothing]

But the issues start when the drive is attached to the system. As a last resort, copy over any data you don't want to lose and totally wipe the drive using kill disk or dban and see what happens. Also, can you physically take the drive out of the case and see if it runs properly?

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the 1st of two issues with this drive is that I can't access it at all, really, to copy or backup any of the data. The 2nd issue is that plugging it in does all sorts of weird stuff to the computer and its' operation.

Like just now, for example, I had the drive plugged in for awhile, hoping it would finally appear in my list so I could run some diagnostics, whatever. While I waited, I thought I'd fire up a video to watch. Loaded VLC (which surprisingly loaded while the drive was plugged in) but there was no sound. The volume in VLC, Windows and on my TV was up so I thought, "I wonder if the sound will come back if I unplug the external drive?" And whaddaya know! As soon as I unplugged the drive, the sound came back on.

Seriously, what the hell is going on here?

 

[johnb35]

I thought you said you ran sfc/scannow on it? Or did you inadvertently run it on c drive? If you can't access it then its toast. Have you tried to see if you can take the drive out of the case and hook it up directly to computer?

 

[Ultranothing]

I thought you said you ran sfc/scannow on it? Or did you inadvertently run it on c drive? If you can't access it then its toast. Have you tried to see if you can take the drive out of the case and hook it up directly to computer?

Well, like I said, I CAN access it. Or, I should reiterate that I've been able to access it a few times but it takes an hour or more for the drive to be recognized, and then the seek times are painfully, non-usable-y slow.

I ran sfc on C: because, like I said, the system has a very difficult time recognizing the drive. The thought was that, because hooking up the external drive causes all sorts of weird phenomena to occur on the system, that perhaps one or more system files was corrupted. SFC was to detect any issues with the system files and repair them, wherefrom I'd try using the drive again.

Actually, come to think of it...why would you suggest I run SFC on the drive itself? SFC is for Windows system files only (so I'm to understand.)

Unfortunately, I don't have a desktop that I can try the drive in. I was thinking it may be a power issue with the enclosure, etc., but I really don't have access to a tower I can try it in.

And I don't mean to question whatever expertise you may have, but there are dozens of reasons why a drive might not be accessible, and "toast" is really something of an extreme conclusion, especially considering all of the information I've given here. An easy conclusion, but an inaccurate one, considering the info I've provided here...

No offense, but would ANYONE ELSE care to chime in? I'm open to all possibilities (including the one where the drive is "toast") but that doesn't seem to be the case, here. Something...weird...is going on with this drive. The data is all still there. I've SEEN it, within the last few days. I just can't USE it.

How could an external drive turn off the sound on my system? How could it freeze the internet? How could it prevent programs from loading? How could it cause the system to hang at startup and/or shutdown?

 

[johnb35]

A bad hard drive can cause many different issues including the ones you've listed. I have my own computer repair business and have seen many different issues in the 18 years I've been doing it. If you did sfc on only C drive then of course its gonna be ok because c drive is your main boot drive not your external. I'm currently working on a laptop that won't boot with the original hard drive in it. It reboots right after post screen. I put a different drive in it and it boots up and doesn't reboot. As I said, many different issues can arise from a bad hard drive.

 

[Ultranothing]

A bad hard drive can cause many different issues including the ones you've listed. I have my own computer repair business and have seen many different issues in the 18 years I've been doing it. If you did sfc on only C drive then of course its gonna be ok because c drive is your main boot drive not your external. I'm currently working on a laptop that won't boot with the original hard drive in it. It reboots right after post screen. I put a different drive in it and it boots up and doesn't reboot. As I said, many different issues can arise from a bad hard drive.

Allrighty - I'll run SFC on the external drive. Though it's my understanding the SFC stands for "System Files Checker" and that it wouldn't make sense to run SFC on a drive that has no system files and doesn't host or run an operating system.

So if I plugged in this drive, waited an hour or so for it to be recognized by the system and then wanted to run SFC, what would be the command line for running it on an external drive, with X: being the drive letter?

 

[Okedokey]

Yes there is no point running SFC on an external drive without a windows OS.

I haven't read the whole thread, however this sounds like a permission error to me. If you can see the drive in Windows:

1. Go to My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View, and uncheck "Use Simple File Sharing".
2. Right-click the drive you are trying to access, go to Properties.
3. Go to Security > Advanced > Owner and highlight the user account on your machine that you would like to take ownership of these files/folders.
4. Be sure to check the box below, "Replace owner on subcontainers and folders" so all files within the folder will inherit the changes.
5. At the message, "You do not have permission to read the contents of directory [folder name]. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control? All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes", click on Yes.
6. (If I remember rightsly, you may need to press the Edit button to change settings.)

 

[johnb35]

Uhmmm. Where in my posts does it say for you to run sfc /scannow command? I said to run western digitals drive diagnostic not sfc.

 

[Ultranothing]

Uhmmm. Where in my posts does it say for you to run sfc /scannow command? I said to run western digitals drive diagnostic not sfc.

I did run WD's LifeGuard diagnostics on the drive. Well, at least I tried to. I couldn't (and am still not able to) get the drive to appear on Windows anymore. It does appear in my Device List under "Devices and Printers" but so do many of the other devices and printers I've had attached to the PC in the past year, so I'm not too confident that that's a good sign.

Although you didn't say explicitly to run SFC /SCANNOW on the external, you'd said "I thought you said you ran sfc/scannow on it? Or did you inadvertently run it on c drive?" and "If you did sfc on only C drive then of course its gonna be ok because c drive is your main boot drive not your external," which led me to believe that you were implying I try running SFC /SCANNOW on the external after I'd mentioned that WD's tool was unsuccessful.

Anyway, I uninstalled my USB mass storage driver and then reset the computer. The system wouldn't shut down with the drive attached, so I unplugged it, went into the BIOS and then re-attached the drive. Not too surprisingly, my BIOS froze. I tried navigating through the BIOS and nothing was happening, until I unplugged the external drive again, whereupon the system went haywire and started moving all around the menu based upon my previous key entries.

I then reset the BIOS to optimum defaults and when the "Loading Windows" screen appeared, I tried to plug the drive back in, where it immediately froze the Loading Windows animation (the swirling colored dots which eventually form the Windows logo).

I have noticed within the past hour or so, that when I unplug the drive I'll get a notification that "You need to format the disk in Drive D: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?" -- Yes, that's right; only when I unplug it. Not when I plug it in, which is what I'd expect.

I do know, also, that it IS being assigned a drive letter (D even though it's not appearing in any list. When I open a command prompt, I can navigate through all my other drives and directories with the problem drive attached, but it immediately freezes if I type in "D:". I can type in "Q:" or some other random drive letter and I get the expected "The system cannot find the drive specified," but D:? It's trying.

What I believe the problem to be is a corruption in the MBR? Or some other weird thing which is beyond my expertise. Or quite possibly it's some kind of permission error, as Okedokey suggested. My fear is that it's as johnb35 said, "toast," but the drive WANTS to work and I've SEEN the drive and its' data pop up randomly on a few occasions.

Is there any sort of software which can brute-force a diagnostic on a problem drive? I was told to possibly try Hiren's Boot CD and see if any of the HD diagnostic tools would catch the drive so I could run checks on the unit's integrity, etc., etc., etc.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated. The data is nearly a decade of collected materials and original works that should have been important enough to back up but...ugh...so I'm sorry if I'm being a pain or anything. I think we've all been here once or twice.

What gets me is that I've had drives back in the 90's that lasted...well...ALL of the 90's. I still have an old 40 meg HDD from my 286/12 from '87 that I bet I could still fire up right now. Maybe it has something to do with the drive's capacity? Larger drives = more failure risk? But it seems to me that they just don't make 'em like they used to...

Thank you all very much, though, for your continued help! Now let me just unplug this drive so I can submit this reply... :/