USB External Drives Keep "Unhooking"


  1. Gurn Blanston
    Posts : 381
    Windows 10
       New #1

    USB External Drives Keep "Unhooking"


    I've had this issue for a while, but I thought it was caused by something else...

    I have an external USB drive, which is just a case with a standard 2 TB desktop drive in it for backups. I have been unable to back up my system with it for about a year. It keeps failing both with Windows Backup and Macrium. The backup will be proceeding normally, then about halfway through the drive will just suddenly disappear, only to return 5 to 10 seconds later. Of course, this blows the back up out of the water and it fails.

    USB External Drives Keep "Unhooking"-error.png

    I thought it was either the 2 TB drive itself or the enclosure, so I pulled it out and put it into a HD dock and tried again. Did the same thing, so I thought it was the hard disk. Today, I am copying some data off of some old HDs to get them ready to put into some old machines for sale. No matter what drive I put into the dock, it unhooks itself halfway through copying a batch of files. I'm copying a folder at a time to minimize the amount of drive failures, but some of the files are quite big and they fail halfway through.

    Now here's the funny part: After copying about 200 GB in fits and starts and constant failures, it would seem that the USB port on the front of my PC has now blown. Now I get a "USB device unrecognized" failure when plugging in or powering up the dock. None of the front USB ports work properly now, including the USB3 ports.

    I'm starting to wonder if I have blown the USB controller on the motherboard.

    Has this ever happened to anyone here? I'm curious if a prolonged USB data transfer is detrimental to the USB controller.

    Thoughts?
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  3. TV2
    Posts : 2,221
    W10 Pro 22H2
       New #2

    Have you tried by plugging into the USB ports on the rear of the PC? The ones connected directly to the motherboard?

    Another test: take one of the drives that showed the behavior and connect it directly to the PC SATA controller like any internal HDD and see if it will do a backup.

    While rare, there could be an electrical problem outside of your PC. Try plugging the external or the dock into a different power source (if they are self powered).
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  4. Gurn Blanston
    Posts : 381
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    I tried hooking the dock up to the ports on the back of the PC. The same unhooking thing happens.

    If I attach the drive as a normal SATA drive in the machine, it works without issue.

    Looks like I have to buy a removable drive bay to make this work.

    Oh, and all of the USB ports on the front of the machine are shot. I must have burned them out. I can't even get a USB flash drive to work in any of them.

    Yippee.
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  6. TV2
    Posts : 2,221
    W10 Pro 22H2
       New #4

    Ouch.
    If that happened then it must be a short circuit/ground problem with the dock. Throw that thing far away!
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