I salvage 2.5" drives, both HDD and SSD with SATA connection, from otherwise junk computers, put them in USB 2 or USB 3 cases such as by Sabrent. I wipe them completely and format to NTFS. I've not had issues with using them for simple storage, just Copy files to them.
The techie was very subtle. Just emphasised on a 'solid state drive'. Minimal if any detail.
Any further ideas? I don't like the idea of transporting it 15kms in a car, just to have a potential software fault addressed. The USB posts were stuffed. But they were supposedly 'looked at'. They still work for various USB devices, and the phone.
My latest portable drive is a 1TB Samsung EVO NVMe drive in a slender case, about 1.25" by 4.5" with USB-C-USB-C cable and I have a USB-C to USB-A adapter for it. The case can hold one of the 3 lengths of the NVMe.
Amazon.com
Well I ended up purchasing another Toshiba 2TB drive. But there's the same issue. It makes a ticking sound, and certainly isn't recognised by Win 10. The sound is consistent, and occurs when it's plugged in to the tower. I am using one of the ports which are located at the top directly above the DVD holder/whatever.
The previous one was making an identical nonstop sound. Another USB drive from China which I tried worked. But only had 90GB of space, despite being advertised as 2GB or more. Is there anything I can do, so that I can finally back up some files in a reliable manner? The USB drive doesn't appear in any form on the computer, anywhere. Not in 'This PC', device manager, or anywhere. The drive was purchased over the counter, not via an online retailer.
The catch is that all of these drives worked a year ago. Then there was an electrical issue with the device that killed the 3 USB drives I had.
Is there likely to be a software fault, or a hardware issue? I wish I could get to the bottom of it.
The SSD drives have no moving parts and the HDDs have spinning disks plus an arm that moves the read/write heads across the disks. The clicking usually comes from the Voice Coil Relay that moves those arms and should never click which usually signifies problems in the drive, could be low power or loss of power supplied to the relay. Both the 3.5" and 2.5" HDDs are similar. The only noise one should hear with an HDD is a whirring sound when held up to the ear.
Did the techie test those disks?
I suspect that it might be a hardware failure in your computer but proving it would need testing.
1 Find out if the disks work in other computers.
and
2 Boot into another OS to test the disks on the computer in question. Other OSes include, for example, -That temporarily established by booting into a Windows installation disk then using its Repair the computer, Troubleshoot, Command prompt to find out if the disks work.This post guides you into using its Command prompt to show the connected disks. You'd need to boot first and then only then connect the disks.
Use InstallUSB Notepad as a rudimentary File explorer to backup files [post #33] - TenForums
Denis
Last edited by Try3; 2 Weeks Ago at 09:00.
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