External Drives Fried.....

[twistedvincent]

Ok....I'm completely baffled by this one. In the past two weeks 3 of my external drives have gone belly up. First my 500Gb external became inaccessible, prompting me to take it apart and plug it directly into one of my front bays to retrieve my data.(it worked) Then my 2TB fantom greendrive started acting up(for the second time). My media files stared freezing mid-playback and causing my system to lockup. After a cold restart, the files in the folder pretty much all did the same thing. Yet other folders were playable. I transferred everything anyway, just to be safe. Now about an hour ago, my verbatim TB hdd locked up and subsequently disappeared(from "my computer")WHILE I WAS BROWSING IT!! After an hour in the freezer it registered in "my computer" again, but I was unable to retrieve any data before it locked up again.
Any ideas as to what could be causing this? My internal hdds seem unaffected(knock wood)
Power, malware(though I've run about three different online scans and found nothing)
Like I said....I'm totally baffled.
I desperately need help on this one. All my important personal files are on the last drive that went down.
Thanks in advance.

 

[xarden]

USB connections to the externals?
Maybe this is the root of the problems.
I had a similar experience with an external 2.5 ATA drive. It turned out to be the enclosure. Got a new one for $15 and its fine.

 

[Arc]

You may check the usb cables and ports ... whether they are in a good condition or not .

 

[twistedvincent]

Two were connected by usb and one esata. I can't imagine the ALL the ports going bad. The comps only 5 months old.

 

[mitchell65]

What A/V software are you using?

 

[twistedvincent]

I'm using Avira at the moment.

 

[mitchell65]

Hm!!!! Download and run Malware Bytes (its free) from here:
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com
and then do the same with CCleaner from here:
Piriform - Download

In the meantime is there any chance you could try one of the USB HD's in another PC?

 

[twistedvincent]

I appreciate the advise. I actually ran malwarebytes and ccleaner first thing when this happened. I also plugged the HDD into another comp to no avail.

 

[mckillwashere]

IF your Ex-Hdd is still under warranty you may want to contact the manufacturer..... IF the unit itself is not maybe the internal HDD is.... I had an external enclosure that the power controller failed in... I opened her up and there was a beautifl Segate HDD inside with 2 years left on the warranty

 

[mitchell65]

That's always possible but a bit of a co-incidence if all 3 went duff at the same time.
Mark, here's another possible idea. If you download "Recuver" and run that on one of the drives, if it works you will at least be able to save your critical data. You can download it from here:
Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download