Is my external hard drive dieing?

Question

I have a 4 year old external hard drive that just started acting up. When I start it up, Windows XP appears to recognize it and sometimes I can see it in "Disk Management." However I can not get on the hard drive as "My Computer" doesn't show it as a drive and I can't locate it by entering it in the search bar of Windows Explorer. Once in maybe every 20 tries it will work, but only for a couple minutes. It sounds like it's running ok, but it rarely shows up as a drive in "My Computer." I'm wondering if my computer or the hard drive has a virus. Or maybe the hard drive is dieing. I have tried adding it as a slave drive in a desktop computer with the same results. Any ideas?

I regularly use the free versions of AVG antivirus, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Lavasoft Adaware.

I had a feeling it was going out. So far I've managed to save maybe 2/3 of the information. Luckily most of it is backed up on newer hard drive.

Answer 1

Drives are mechanical devices, and they do not live forever.
Run disk diagnostics against the drive, or get someone to do it for you.

Answer 2

Well it doesn't sound comforting but there is hope. You mention it is an external drive, presumably it's USB? or is it firewire or even SCSI?

Either way, start with the basics for troubleshooting. Check the cable. Does juggling the cable make the drive appear or dissapear? if so you need to isolate the problem as the cable or the jack.

Do you have adequate power? have you moved USB ports recently or upgraded/change USB hubs? many drives do not work well in all USB hubs because they do not provide adequate power for a hard drive. This is especially true when trying to put an ext drive in a USB 1 hub, which works unreliably at best.

If all that checks out ok, check the even log and see if you are getting any type of errors on the drive. you can go do START > RUN > eventvwr to see the even log. You might see some errors from the drive or drive controller which might reveal more about what is going on.

If it looks like the controller might be bad you can get a PCI controller card for around $20 but it's much more likely that the drive is bad then the controller, still it happens, I have seen it.

If all of that turns up nothing another step would be to try and put the drive into a system internally. This will eliminate any faults with the external controller circuitry as well as any hardware/cable issues.

IF you are still not seeing any love, you can run some hard drive diagnostics from some free CD's like the "ultimate boot CD". These will scan the drive and perform read/write tests and such . There is also some vendor specific diagnostic utilities on that disk to use.

One of those steps should identify the faulty componenent. Given the low prices of drives these days it might be less work to just get a new one. By all means the first step is to secure your data. Remember it is never a question of will my hard drive fail, but when will it fail.

Egoslayer1
Secure your Network for Free
http://www.amazon.com/Secure-Your-Network-Free-Seagren/dp/1597491233/ref=sr_1_3/103-3627436-2252638?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189786269&sr=8-3

Answer 3

4 years is a better lifetime that the external HDD has survived for. As far as ur assumption is concerned, u r right as the life span of an ext. HDD is 3 years eventhough it boasts of lifetime or 5 years.
The alt approach would be to defrag the drive using O&ODefrag 2000. It is the best freeware to get around these kind of problems.

Answer 4

Four years old - that is about right for a hard drive to begin to die. Recommend that you back up any files you want from the drive, and then plan on replacing it.

Check your drive, and see if it has an screws that will let you open it. Usually it is a common, normal hard drive just inside of a special case. If you can open the case, you can usually replace it with another standard hard drive cheaper then replacing both the drive and the case. (Just a little trick....)

Answer 5

I would recommend going to your device manager and check for your harddrive there. Usually when it does not detect it, it means that it is going to go bad on you. Have you ever had a blue screen up up stating that memory is being dumped when you turn on your computer? If so, that is not a good sign and you should really backup your HD and get a new one. If your HD is 4 years old..I'm sure you can get something that is more than twice the size of that relatively cheap.

Answer 6

Sounds like the partition on the external drive is going bad

Answer 7

Your hard disk is likely corrupted. Anytime you are able to get connected backup your documents and format your external disk. do disk scan later to fix any bad sector. The only problem is if you can not copy your documents means you will lose them if you format the hard disk.
Best of luck

Answer 8

Yea, You might have to drop a few hundred on a new one. But the upgrade will be worth it. I mean 4 years! Wow, that lasted you a long time. Its time for an upgrade.

Answer 9

Have you checked the hardware manager, to make sure it's recognizing you even have it plugged in?

Answer 10

if that information is really important
You can buy and use this program to get into that driver to get your information
And run it on other drives to keep them from failing

http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm