[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

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Windows 10 and 11 have so many generic drivers that many hardware manufacturers don`t even ship driver disks with their products, OEMs like Dell and HP etc are a bit more selective but external HDDs normally get along fine with generic HID drivers, firmware is a different matter so consider it as a possible cause of your issue/s.

 

Please connect the problem drive to the PC that it is normally hooked up to and then do the below;

 

Download then run Speccy ( free ) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s. 

 

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

1. In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.
2. In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.
3. Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.

[phillpower2]

Windows 10 and 11 have so many generic drivers that many hardware manufacturers don`t even ship driver disks with their products, OEMs like Dell and HP etc are a bit more selective but external HDDs normally get along fine with generic HID drivers, firmware is a different matter so consider it as a possible cause of your issue/s.

 

Please connect the problem drive to the PC that it is normally hooked up to and then do the below;

 

Download then run Speccy ( free ) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s. 

 

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

1. In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.
2. In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.
3. Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.

[SunnySeven]

-Edit-

I seemed to have fixed my problem. Apparently this is an ongoing issue with Western Digital drives. Oddly enough, I just went to Western Digital's main site and installed their utility tool called "WD Drive Utilities". Ran it and installed it.

 

 

https://support-en.w...ftwaredownloads

 

I did a couple of checks and which only took like a couple of minutes and checked my device manager and suddenly its working again

 

 

 

 

 

One of those things you wouldn't expect to work right away. I looked everywhere for WD's drivers and every site kept saying they weren't available or at least one Microsoft's side. Either way thanks anyways, I'll continue to pop in for a few days to see if anything else comes up.

Edited by SunnySeven, Yesterday, 09:13 PM.