Solved Problem With Hard Drive Freezing When Accessing Files

[Brucex64]

I've got an external hard drive (actually just an internal drive in an enclosure connected via usb) that is giving me a problem lately. When I plug it into the computer it shows up and gives me the autoplay dialog. It shows up in Windows Explorer and allows me to look at the properties. It shows me the directory tree and names of files. I've even been able to click on a small file and drag/move it onto my internal hard drive successfully. But with folders containing 40gb of videos or lots of photos Windows Explorer freezes. Both of my photo viewing applications freeze too if I use them to view the files. I need to loolk at these files to see if I need any of them and I need to save the videos!

I tried booting into safe mode but I can't do that because my mouse won't work (its a usb mouse) - this is probably a different issue though.

I turned off indexing for this drive through the properties dialog. I also uninstalled the usb driver for it, plugged it in and let it reinstall a usb driver. I can't make this drive allow me to view and/or move all of the files! What could be the problem?

 

[jumanji]

My first point of suspicion will be the enclosure you are using.

Try connecting your HDD internally and see whether you can access everything normally..

Now a question that should embarrass you: Is it difficult for you to mention the manufacturer, Model Number, Capacity of the internal HDD and the manufacturer and model of the enclosure? When you have a problem with a device you should always furnish complete details of the devices involved - not just my PC, my external drive, my enclosure.

 

[AddRAM]

See what Crystal Disk has to say about the drive.

CrystalDiskMark - Software - Crystal Dew World

And I agree with J, unless you need this drive to be portable, just install it in the case.

Lady F brought up some great points here.

SATA 6 vs USB 3 speeds

 

[Brucex64]

Sorry, I should have included more info. The hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 with an IDE connection. 160gb capacity, about 75gb free. I bought it in 2008 but it hasn't been used much in the last 3 years.

The enclosure is a Spire Gigapod II SP-121. Not much more I can say about it, it has a power cable and a usb cable. It only have an IDE connector inside for the drive. I checked but I don't have another IDE cable to try. I think I may have thrown them away because all my other drives are SATA. I did try a different usb cable from another drive enclosure (that one is a SATA drive) and its not the usb cable.

I tried to plug this into my small netbook computer and it does the same thing.

Oh, and I've pretty much only used it to store photos/videos when travelling. After a trip in January, I hooked it up to my computer and copied the "keeper" photos onto my internal drive (which has cloud backup). I left the videos on there because I didn't have space for them. I even used Premiere to edit some videos with the raw files on this drive and it worked fine. It worked fine when I last used it a month or two ago. It may have been a bit slower than SATA but it was ok for what it was being used for. I would really like to get those videos out of it though.

 

[AddRAM]

It`s IDE and only 160 GB, get your data off and chuck it.

 

[Brucex64]

I ran a chkdsk on it. This was the result. So it looks like it should be good, right?

Maybe....maybe this will work! My fingers are crossed! I was able to copy two files (1 photo raw file and one mp4 GoPro clip that is 3.5gb in size. It copied successfully! I will try more...

 

[jumanji]

Hopefully, after check disk corrected the file system deficiency in the MFT, you should be able to read the drive without any problem of freezing. If that happens, as AddRAM mentioned in his post#5, ASAP copy all data into another SATA drive and jettison your old enclosure and HDD.

 

[Brucex64]

Ok, here's an update. It started to work again as it did before. I don't trust it though.

I decided to spend $60 on a WD Passport external usb drive that I can use for the purpose of storing photos/video temporarily. I am moving the files over. A big chunk is some GoPro videos (38gb). My main data drive doesn't have enough space to permanently store them (I only have 45gb free) so they'll have to reside on the Passport for now. I'll have to upgrade that internal drive at some point and I was hoping to go SSD.

 

[AddRAM]

There is no reason to get a sdd for storage purposes, unless you have money to burn. Large ssd`s are very expensive.

Just save up to get a 2 TB WD or Seagate Sata 3 Hard drive.

 

[jumanji]

Do not buy WD external Passport, My Book etc., Those are hardware encrypted and should these drives fail - as these do most often compared to other brands - DIY data recovery is almost impossible.

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...-passport-ultra-external-drive-corrupted.html
"( You unknowingly got trapped and locked yourself out, buying a hardware encrypted Western Digital External drive.)"

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/398842-disk-2-unkown-not-initialized.html#post3269412

You will be better off buying a good enclosure and a suitable internal HDD to go into it.

 

[Brucex64]

That sounds like a scam! They make a drive that comes encrypted and if it fails no one but them can recover data.

I did not install any of their software so is it still locked?

 

[jumanji]

If it is anything other than WD Elements, the data that goes into the actual physical HDD inside the enclosure is automatically encrypted by the hardware encryption/decryption chip present in the enclosure electronics whether or not you install any WD software like Smartware etc,. There is no way the user can defeat the hardware encryption that takes place.

Even in the case of WD Elements external drive, the Sata to USB bridge electronics inside the enclosure is integrated into the physical HDD. ( it does not have the conventional SATA connector) So you cannot separate the HDD and try to recover the data by connecting it directly into the motherboard - in cases where it is only the interface electronics that has failed and the HDD itself is still good.

I also understand that even other manufacturers may be adapting such integration to make the externals truly portable with size reduction.

Keeping all these in view, it is always better to purchase an enclosure and a conventional internal HDD to go with it.

Scam or not - I am nobody to pass any judgement except giving out the facts as I know as people have experienced and let me know .

 

[Brucex64]

What is the benefit of non-password protected hardware encryption? If someone steals the drive they can still get the data and if someone hacks into a computer with one of these connected they can still get the data. I doubt that anyone is going to go to the effort of prying the case open to steal the bare drive (which would render it useless).

 

[jumanji]

You are absolutely right. Perhaps you had read this write-up which I had quoted many times in this forum. Should you avoid external hard drives that boast built-in encryption? | Bald Nerd

At one point of time as the article mentions WD was using the same decrypt key for all the drives in the same batch. Later realising that it can be decrypted by procuring the same batch WD drive, they changed the decryption key to something like a random number. So each hardware encrypted WD drive has a random key generated by an algorithm which is embedded in the drive electronics.

Then how is that the WD Data Recovery Partners are able to decrypt the drive? My guess is that WD provides them with something like a Master key just like TSA has the master Key to open all TSA locks. ( Fortunately I have two TSA locks that can be opened with the same key. So I need not carry two keys )

Just at this time of writing, I have read that some Data Recovery Agencies have mastered the art/technique of decrypting any WD encrypted drive for USD300 Fee.( Just in case you need the service at anytime )

 

[Brucex64]

Well I may have spoke too soon. I think its bad again. And the WD Passport is useless with my configuration. I had to go out of town for a couple days. I discovered that the Passport will not be recognized by my Netbook because it is Windows XP and the WD drive is not formatted for XP. I could not format it because I moved some important stuff from my PC onto it. I was able to store new photos on the Netbook and putting them on my PC worked because I copied them from the original memory cards.

When I got home, I plugged in the original external hard drive and the Netbook did not recognize it! I plugged it into my desktop computer and its doing the same thing as in my original post. Can't read or copy anything from it.

At this point I do not think there's anything of value on it.

So I don't know what a good solution is for storing photos when I travel. Buy a new Netbook or mini laptop? But then how do I transfer stuff to my PC's internal drive? Other suggestions?

 

[Megahertz07]

What kind of format is on the WD Passport that Win XP doesn't recognize it? All kinds of Windows recognizes Fat 32 or NTFS. And to be compatible to all OS normally external drives are Fat 32 formated. Is your WD a GPT drive?

 

[Brucex64]

I downloaded the WD SES Driver and installed it on the netbook. Now the Passport is recognized by Windows but won't come up. Under Device Management/Storage it shows it listed as GPT Protected but when I look at that on my desktop it does not say GPT, just formatted NTFS.

 

[Megahertz07]

Not all OS's recognizes GPT. Win XP doesn't. Again, normally external drives are MBR and Fat 32 format. How big is your WD Passport drive? Found this on WD support WD external drive is not recognized or detected in Windows XP after installation and usage | WD Support

 

[Brucex64]

It is 1tb. So from that article it looks like if I reformat with a MBR it would work? Is there any difference to how this drive will operate (and with its encryption scheme) between GUID and MBR format types?

 

[Megahertz07]

GPT has the advantage to support drives bigger than 2T, but only UEFI BIOS will handle it. As your drive is smaller than 2T there is no need for GPT and you wont see any difference.