Several Hard Drive's (Including Brand New) Getting Mixed Errors

Caledon Ken · 31 May 2020

These appear to be saying Windows is powering down USB items. No harm in my mind to defeat these, that is shutting off their ability to power down. Not sure why a drive / controller would be powering down while in use. Yes is left there and not being used I could see power down.

This is approaching the problem from a different angle. First you worked through are the drives themselves faulty. Think the conclusion was no, they are find. I had suggested the 3rd party file app. Now we are looking possible USB power and or Windows issues, (drivers, SFC).

Any course you choose is acceptable, it is a process of elimination in my books. Try the easiest first, like power mgmt options.

I don't want to see you lose data so maybe disconnect some of your drives.

If you have lost data I would not be trying any data recovery routines without some real guidance. There is a member who is very good with data recovery and I can ask him to join.

What we have to avoid is to many pokers in the fire. By this I mean we can't be doing data recovery and problem determination at the same time.

I would be more concerned with data.

This is a desktop correct? Maybe just installing a drive in the box would be the best avenue to get reliable storage. You specs say you are on v1709, that is incorrect right?

Clintlgm · 31 May 2020

OK, I'll chime in once again. This issue is very common with Asus Notebooks, The solution has been determined that the Left side port could not supply enough power Due to a MB issue. It could well be that your USB Ports are not suppling enough consistent power for these external hard drives. I also experienced the same issue with my Dell only on the Dell it could handle one External hard drive. Let me be clear here all my External hard drive with these issue are WD My Passports which get all there power from the USB Source. With the dell it couldn't maintain a transfer between tow external hard drives with out interruption and data loss. How I solved all these issue was to purchase a Atolla 7 Port USB 3.0 Hub this comes with a 4A power supply. This has solved all my issue with Multiple external hard drives on all my computers. As a test I set up 4 External hard drives on my Dell 13 7386 2 in one notebook. I was able to set up Transfers between these 4 drives and since on of these drives was an 1TB m.2 NVME external I not only had it transferring between one of the other external hard drives I also set up a concurring transfer between this M.2 ext and my internal m.2 NVME all these transfers were 100GB to 200GB blocks of data these transfers were all drag and drop using windows file manager all of these drive were working concurrently with the m.2 running two different operations. I could not make this set up fail. My conclusion is that the cause of the transfers failing was lack of power being supplied to the external hard drives. So to the OP I would suggest you may look into the USB to SATA Sabrent dock and your USB 3.0 Ports. While the Sabrent may have been fine in the past it could be failing also you may be overloading your MB USB 3.0 Ports. Cheap work around would be a PCIe USB 3.1 Gen 2 Adapter card. These support 10 GBS transfers. And as mention early in this thread some quality external cases or just an upgraded USB 3.1 gen 2 SATA to USB dock. And Cables to match. USB 3.0 cables are not created equal many are built for charging tablets and phones etc. so look for 10 GBPS qualified cables. So my long drawn out comment gets down to I think your issue could be lack of enough power to your external hard drives.

CT71 · 31 May 2020

Ok, so I kind of switched gears here a little. I hope no one is offended, I don't want to be deemed "unhelpable". I looked at all my externals and configured a way to be able to move around some data from one to another, where if I did lose some data I'd be Ok back up wise. I disabled all the "power options" like it said to in the links I provided. I could be very very wrong in thinking this, but I just have a hard time thinking that the setup I've been using for probably the last three years was the culprit - meaning the 3rd party file explorer with these same HD's and same Sabrent, and Windows version. So far from last night thru today I've probably copy/pasted about 4TB's of data. I've written down exactly which ports, and what HD I put on the left and right side of the Sabrent......anything that I might need just incase. I didn't want to guess like I did before with what had happened at what junction. Right before I started this entire post a couple weeks ago I thought I was looking good because I had transferred data literally all weekend and thought I was home free.........only to get an error message on that Sunday night................so I'm not gonna get my hopes up too soon, but I'd still take 4TB's of data transfer over an error message! To be perfectly honest, I really didn't think the "power" fixes were gonna do anything, but like I said......4TB's so far without an error message is better than an error message.

@Caledon Ken - Yes, desktop. And I made some changes to my specs to reflect. Win 1809.

@Clintlgm - Thanks for chiming in. I'm gonna continue to see how this "test" that I'm doing right now goes. But I did read with some googling stuff like you suggested. Fingers crossed that these transfer tests that I'm doing now continue to just work.

Berton · 31 May 2020

A comment about a page or two earlier "And I wouldn't see how the back and front ports would have anything to do with one another because they're no where near one another", the rear USB ports are soldered onto the motherboard and the front ports/panel connect to the motherboard by cable, could be USB 2 or USB 3 just as the rear ports could be. USB 2 usually has a black plastic part in the plug and socket while USB 3 has blue.

About the twice-yearly Upgrades, they nearly always remove a lot of customizations, I have a couple of older programs that work but because they get removed have saved the file necessary to reinstall, doesn't take long. Haven't had much problem with the Build updates doing it. Same for some Registry tweaks.

Caledon Ken · 01 Jun 2020

No offense taken. What ever works.

CT71 · 01 Jun 2020

Heh, thanks! Yup, pretty good model........whatever works........that's what I'm trying to get too. Hopefully I don't reply too soon, the longer I don't reply means the longer this test is working. I'll check back at some point, good or bad. Thanks.

CT71 · 07 Jun 2020

Ok, second weekend of transfers. Did about 1 or 2 TB's and so far so good even though I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop every time I do another run through.

I really cannot see how changing the power options would have any effect in having no errors. From one of the articles I read it states: "the flash drive is connected to a computer in standby mode for a long time, the power saving function is automatically activated. Thus, the USB flash drive keeps disconnecting". At no time did I ever have these idle for long enough to even remotely go into stand by mode, so I'm puzzled by this.

I have about another 3 TB's to get through before I'm done with getting everything where it needs to be on these HD's. If I get through that without any hiccups I'll come back and mark as solved. If anyone with more technical expertise than me knows a different answer of why the power option would work I'd be happy to hear it, because like I said, it just doesn't make much sense to me.

CT71 · 14 Jun 2020

So I'm just about done finishing a 12TB or so move. Even my cynical self is starting to crack a half smile that nothing has screwed up yet, so I suppose I should mark this thread as solved.

Shout out to everyone who helped and participated in this thread, especially zbook and Caledon Ken, thank you.

Just one last mention....................if anyone thinks they have an answer to as why the power option settings would work, I'm all ears, because to me it just doesn't make sense. And why now?? I've been using the same set up for the past few years with no changes. Anyways, it's better to have a fix with no clue as to why than a bunch of brilliant ideas that don't, lol.

Thanks.................CT

zbook · 15 Jun 2020

12 TB is some of the largest storage that I've seen in use in the forum.
Glad to read the progress.
You're welcome.

Caledon Ken · 15 Jun 2020

Excellent to hear. 12TB is a lot of data. Are you a photographer?