[SunnySeven]

I couldn't tell if this was a Windows problem or a hardware problem so I posted here.

 

One of my external HDDs started disconnecting and reconnecting a lot after being plugged in for some time. Been using it on my main Windows 10 PC for over a year now and never had this issue. I checked device manager and noticed an exclamation mark for my external drive. I tried updating and said windows couldn't find the right driver so I tried disabling and then removing the driver and restarting my pc but still get the same exclamation mark. Nothing about installing a new device or anything when I plug it back in.

 

 

I tried the external HDD on my old laptop running windows 7 and it had zero issues so I'm not sure what went wrong. Only thing different I've done in the last 48 hours since this post was install Malwarebytes since I haven't had it on my newly built PC but I remember it disconnecting and reconnecting just once the night after Malwarebytes was installed later that night as well.

 

 

After playing around with my external HDD on my laptop I noticed the driver file on my laptop is missing on my main PC. So I kind of wonder if copying the driver file from my old laptop to my main PC would do the trick? The things I've done so far are:
 

 

• I did a disk check and found zero issues and checked with crystal disk to see the state of the HDD and everything showed up ok.
• I tried using different front USB ports on my PC. It has 2 front USB 3.0 ports. I also tried changing external HDD cables. All still gave me the same results. 
• I uninstalled Malwarebytes and did a complete reboot. Still the same issue.
• I checked Devices and Printers and saw my external hdd with an exclamation mark with an option to troubleshoot so I tried that and says "it couldn't find a driver", so I tried selecting the top option and it said it couldn't identify the problem.

 

 

 

 

I'm not really sure what happened for it to lose or corrupt my external hdd like that but this started happening after I installed Malwarebytes and the only real thing I done on this PC since. I'm always careful about unplugging it and always eject it through windows before unplugging it.

 

 

My PC's specs 

CPU:AMD Ryzen 5 8500G 4.1 GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard:MSI PRO B650M-P Micro ATX AM5
GPU:Radeon RX 6600 8 GB
Memory:Crucial CT2K8G48C40U5 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR5-4800 CL40