External HDD

[redman]

I have a 500 GB external hard drive. And about 7 months ago I had a problem with the partition table or something so the HDD wasnt recognized. I used a tool called testdisk to rewrite it and it started working again, although it takes about 20 - 30 seconds to be recognized before I can explore it. The problem Im having is that transfering big files is incredibly slow.

A 700 MB file I can expect it to take 45 minutes to copy. At first, when copying the file I get 60 MB speeds but it drops significantly over the next 10 seconds going down to 20 and down to 1 MB/s, and then it just gets slower 500 kb/s, 400 kb/s. If i wait a bit after a file copy is done, it starts off at 60 MB/s again, if I run it directly after, it will be starting at 10-20 MB/s. I ran a chkdisk on it using the windows gui and theres nothing wrong it says. Im defragging it now. Other than drive failing or what ever, is there anything else that could explain the significant drop in speeds.

 

[Mellon Head]

Sorry, but could you fill in your system details? It makes it a little easier to help if we know what's in your system.

Is this a USB external drive? Or an eSATA?

I had this happen in an internal desktop drive because of a bad SATA cable. Even if it's a USB drive, there's still a SATA interface in it. If it's just a generic enclosure, try opening it up and checking that the cables are seated properly. If it's a regular drive in an enclosure, you could try plugging it into a desktop SATA port to see if the copy speed improves.

That's all I got without some more info.

 

[whs]

Enable write caching on the disk. Go to Device Manager > Disk drives > the disk in question > Policies tab. If you have a lot of RAM, that will help.

 

[redman]

Yes its a usb device.

I enabled the write caching, still the same problem. Might be slightly faster but hardly, its down to 1.2 MB/s so far.


I took out all the screws and im trying to open it, hard to tell which way it opens but it doesnt want to come open. Been trying for an hour, it seems like id have to break something to get it open

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=6c67078db79a75fc108069a1944676e5en02

this is it im pretty sure

 

[Mellon Head]

I wouldn't open that one. It might be a nightmare to get back together, assuming the plastic case doesn't break.

Have you recently updated your USB drivers, or anything like that?

 

[redman]

No, and its on every device. I get 300 kb/s on average now... All my files are on it, it is going to be a nightmare to get off. Im assuming the drive is just about dead now and im screwed

 

[Mellon Head]

In that case, my advice would be to hook it up to something with a big drive and transfer everything that you want to keep from it to the big one.

It's gonna take all night and maybe the next day, but it sounds like that drive, or its interface, is gonna fail pretty soon.

It's bad luck, but maybe you can save the data in time. Hope so.