Toshiba ex-internal drive (now external) not being recognized

[mwr]

My Acer Windows 10 notebook had a 1 tb Toshiba internal hard drive. A few months ago I replaced that hard drive with an SSD. I now use that hard drive to periodically clone the SSD back to the hard drive for a full backup. During that process, the hard drive is connected to the Acer by a cable from the hard drive to a USB port. All has been fine until last night when the clone process didn't complete. I then found that the plugged-in hard drive didn't appear in File Explorer (it had been drive E). When connected to the USB port, I can feel the disk operating but it's still not being recognized as being connected.

Ideas?

 

[Ahhzz]

Generally, one of two things. Drive failing, or external bay failing. In the distant third, there's the cable or the port. Are you plugging into the front port or in the back? The front can be a bit picky at times. Along those lines, external; bays can also be picky. do you have a desktop in which to install the original drive for testing?

 

[mwr]

No other computer to test it on. By using Disk Manager, I was able to see it and assign a drive letter. I'll try the clone process again tonight.

 

[Ahhzz]

I would also recommend something like HD Sentinel to test the drive, see if you can tell if it's failing.

 

[TheLostSwede]

This happens every time on my SO's Dell XPS 13 work notebook. All external drives refuse to show up until you force add them in the disk manager by assigning a drive letter there. It's really frustrating and I have no idea why this is happening.

 

[mwr]

I would also recommend something like HD Sentinel to test the drive, see if you can tell if it's failing.

Thanks! I installed the free version and it said the following about that drive:
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There are 2360 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area. Based on the number of remapping operations, the bad sectors may form continuous areas. It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there. It is recommended to backup immediately to prevent data loss.
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Looks like I need to get another drive for the cloned backup. Probably a duplicate of the internal SSD.

I did a full format on that drive (6 1/2 hours on a USB2 connection), then ran HD Sentinel and got exactly the same result. Anyone have an idea how a hard drive could get so bad after being seemingly fine?

 

[Ahhzz]

Unfortunately, Drives go Bad . I'm betting there were little hiccups here and there as Windows reallocated the failing sector data to "good" sector storage. If you have the money, an identical SSD is the best option, especially if you're doing a clone/image and not a "backup". Personally, I'm partial to Image for Windows, and have had to use the bare metal recovery a small number of times, and it worked great. But, whatever floats your boat GL, glad you caught the backup failing before you needed it!

 

[Keullo-e]

Drives can work a long time with bad sectors, and then they're just toast. Luckily I have backups from the most of the important data from here.

Spoiler

 

[mwr]

Unfortunately, Drives go Bad . I'm betting there were little hiccups here and there as Windows reallocated the failing sector data to "good" sector storage. If you have the money, an identical SSD is the best option, especially if you're doing a clone/image and not a "backup". Personally, I'm partial to Image for Windows, and have had to use the bare metal recovery a small number of times, and it worked great. But, whatever floats your boat GL, glad you caught the backup failing before you needed it!

I've already ordered an identical SSD. They used to be small and expensive, but not these days.

Drives can work a long time with bad sectors, and then they're just toast. Luckily I have backups from the most of the important data from here.

Thanks. That's likely what happened. I'm replacing it with duplicate of the internal SSD.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Looks like I need to get another drive for the cloned backup. Probably a duplicate of the internal SSD.

That could just be incidental defects. The drive itself might be Ok otherwise. I have an old drive just like that. In situations like yours I would put the drive through a surface test to find where the bad sectors are. If they are right at or near the beginning of the drive, simply deleting the partition and creating a new one leaving enough empty space in front of the partition to exclude the bad sectors would be an easy work-around. 2360 bad sectors is not all that many relative to the total number of them on a 1TB drive. Bad sectors happen. It's the way the technology has always worked. It would be a shame to throw away that drive if it still works.

The one I've got is a 500GB drive from 2011. The bad sectors on mine happened in the 3rd quarter of the drive. I was able to figure out where they were, how many and how they were spread out. The drive has been partitioned with a 341GB primary partition, a 1GB area of empty space, then the remainder on a secondary partition. It's been operating like that for 7 years with no further problems.

If you want to keep the drive you have but don't know how to diagnose it in a way that will be useful, I offer assistance in that task. All you'll need a few software tools which are free for personal use. Let me know if you'd like to try.

 

[mwr]

That could just be incidental defects. The drive itself might be Ok otherwise. I have an old drive just like that. In situations like yours I would put the drive through a surface test to find where the bad sectors are. If they are right at or near the beginning of the drive, simply deleting the partition and creating a new one leaving enough empty space in front of the partition to exclude the bad sectors would be an easy work-around. 2360 bad sectors is not all that many relative to the total number of them on a 1TB drive. Bad sectors happen. It's the way the technology has always worked. It would be a shame to throw away that drive if it still works.

The one I've got is a 500GB drive from 2011. The bad sectors on mine happened in the 3rd quarter of the drive. I was able to figure out where they were, how many and how they were spread out. The drive has been partitioned with a 341GB primary partition, a 1GB area of empty space, then the remainder on a secondary partition. It's been operating like that for 7 years with no further problems.

If you want to keep the drive you have but don't know how to diagnose it in a way that will be useful, I offer assistance in that task. All you'll need a few software tools which are free for personal use. Let me know if you'd like to try.

Thanks so much for the offer, but since this is for backup purposes I'll be more confident with a drive that shows no errors (as do my SSD and external HD). I have a tech-heavy friend I'll give it to (if he wants it).