Help me i am noob, WD external drive problems

[lordtalon]

I have a western digital 1tb external hard drive and no matter what computer i put it on i can access some of the info on it but not all and sometimes it just boots me off. It powered by ac adapter and is connected by USB. I was thinking maybe it was a power issue since the ac adapter i am using is not rated as high as the information on the name plate of the hard drive, but could it be more. When i ran a chkdsk it found no errors but i still cannot access. I checked with diskcheckup and the status on everything was OK. What to do?

Get new power cord or buy new external hd?

[David (PassMark)]

Are you using the power supply that came with the drive, or just some other random power supply you had sitting around?

it just boots me off

What exactly do you mean? Do you mean the drive disappears from Windows Explorer? Is there some error message?

If the drive just disappears have you checked the USB cable, maybe it is intermittent.

[lordtalon]

Are you using the power supply that came with the drive, or just some other random power supply you had sitting around?

What exactly do you mean? Do you mean the drive disappears from Windows Explorer? Is there some error message?

If the drive just disappears have you checked the USB cable, maybe it is intermittent.

It still shows the icon for the hard drive but it wont let me access the drive. It plays some things on the drive and half way thru playing the movie it skips then stops (the movie i mean). The error that pops up is something like "the movie xxxxx could not be save from device xxxx."

Its 850 gb worth of info on there. The power supply is a random power supply I found after the original one was destroyed by my dog. the old one was 12vdc, .55a the new one is 12vdc, 1.0a.

[David (PassMark)]

12vdc, .55a the new one is 12vdc, 1.0a.

Are you sure about this?
12 Volts is normal. But 0.55 Amps is very low (only 6.6 watts). I think you must have read it wrong, or be confused with the input Amps (at 110 or 240 volts).

More typical for an (full size) external drive would be 1.5 Amps (18 watts). And for some drives like the "My Book Mirror Edition" you would need 36 watts.

They have them on sale here,
http://store.westerndigital.com/stor...catid.13096000

[lordtalon]

Are you sure about this?
12 Volts is normal. But 0.55 Amps is very low (only 6.6 watts). I think you must have read it wrong, or be confused with the input Amps (at 110 or 240 volts).

More typical for an (full size) external drive would be 1.5 Amps (18 watts). And for some drives like the "My Book Mirror Edition" you would need 36 watts.

They have them on sale here,
http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/en_US/DisplayAccesoryProductDetailsPage/productID.108411100/categoryID.13096000/parid.13092600/catid.13096000

But do you think that is the issue? Is it that its not enough power going to the drive to operate it correctly or is something wrong with the drive. If this is a possible issue I will be happy to try buying this because buying a new hard drive when you don't need to is not lucrative. by the wat this is a western digital wd10eacs-00d6b0. If that helps narrow down the possible problems hope that helps.

[David (PassMark)]

The wd10eacs (WD Caviar Green) use over 10 watts, but this is without the power requirements of the USB to SATA bridge chip. So I think it is likely that your 12W supply isn't enough some of the time.

If you can't afford to buy the correct $14.99 power supply then can your borrow one from a friend to test it out. They are fairly common.

[lordtalon]

The wd10eacs (WD Caviar Green) use over 10 watts, but this is without the power requirements of the USB to SATA bridge chip. So I think it is likely that your 12W supply isn't enough some of the time.

If you can't afford to buy the correct $14.99 power supply then can your borrow one from a friend to test it out. They are fairly common.

I ordered it. I just wanted to be sure that it might be the issue.

[lordtalon]

I ordered it. I just wanted to be sure that it might be the issue.

Ok i found the actual one that came with it. It doesnt work but here is the info on it.


input 100-240v~50/60Hz 500mA
Output 12.0(12,0)V 1500mA

will the one u suggested work ?

[David (PassMark)]

The voltage (V) needs to exactly match. The current (mA) needs to be equal to or more than the original spec.

[lordtalon]

The voltage (V) needs to exactly match. The current (mA) needs to be equal to or more than the original spec.

I canceled the order and went to radio shack down the street. This is what I found.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3807944#tabsetBasic

[lordtalon]

I bought the power adapter that exactly matches the stats given and it works sometime still. I am now ordering the part you suggested to see if that will help.

[David (PassMark)]

If you are now using a 1500mA supply and still have problems, then you need to consider the possibility that the problem is elsewhere. Did the dog eat the whole drive or just the power supply.

You might also want to check the S.M.A.R.T values,
http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

[lordtalon]

If you are now using a 1500mA supply and still have problems, then you need to consider the possibility that the problem is elsewhere. Did the dog eat the whole drive or just the power supply.

You might also want to check the S.M.A.R.T values,
http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

Just power supply. The driver was under the bed in a case but the power supply (i blame my wife) was not with it. It was left outside the case on the floor. The other WD power supply has not made it here yet but here are the SMART values:

SysInfo DLL Version: SysInfo v1.0
Build: 1008
Time of export: 17:40:38 09-Jan-2011

Device information:
Device ID: 6
Interface: USB
Device Capacity: 2097151 MB
Serial Number: WD-WCAU43788924
Model Number: WDC WD10EACS-00D6B0
Firmware Revision: 01.01A01
Partitions:
L: 953867 MB

ATA information:

Disk geometry:
Cylinders: 4294967295
Tracks/Cylinder: 1
Sectors/Track: 1
Bytes/Sector: 512
Total disk sectors: 1953525168
Logical sector size: 512
Physical sector size: 512
Media rotation rate: N/A
Buffer size: 16384 KB
ECC size: 50 Bytes

Standards compliance:
ATA8-ACS Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-7 Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-6 Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-5 Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-4 Supported: Yes
Serial/Parallel: Serial
SATA 3.0 Compilance: No
SATA 2.6 Compilance: No
SATA 2.5 Compilance: Yes
SATA II: Ext Compilance: Yes
SATA 1.0a Compilance: Yes
ATA8-AST Compilance: No
World Wide ID: 50014EE2ACD0CB20

Feature support:
SMART supported: Yes
SMART enabled: Yes
SMART self-test supported: Yes
SMART error log supported: Yes
LBA supported: Yes
IORDY supported: Yes
CFast supported: No
DMA supported: Yes
Maximum Multiword DMA mode supported: 2
Multiword DMA selected: None
Maximum UltraDMA mode supported: 6
UltraDMA selected: 6
Maximum PIO mode supported: 4
SATA Compliance: Yes
NCQ priority information supported: No
Unload while NCQ commands are outstanding supported: No
Phy Event Counters supported: Yes
Receipt of power management requests supported: Yes
NCQ feature set supported: Yes
SATA Gen2 Signaling Speed (3.0Gb/s) supported: Yes
SATA Gen1 Signaling Speed (1.5Gb/s) supported: Yes
Software Settings Preservation: Supported, Enabled
In-order data delivery: Not supported
Initiating power management: Not supported
DMA Setup auto-activation: Supported, Disabled
Non-zero buffer offsets: Not supported
Trusted Computing supported: No
Host Protected Area (HPA) supported: Yes
Read look-ahead supported: Yes
Read look-ahead enabled: Yes
Write cache supported: Yes
Write cache enabled: Yes
Power management supported: Yes
Security mode supported: Yes
Security mode enabled: No
Device Configuration Overlay (DCO) supported: Yes
48bit Addressing supported: Yes
Auto Acoustic Managment (AAM) supported: Yes
Auto Acoustic Managment (AAM) enabled: Yes
Recommended AAM level: Minimum acoustic emanation level
Current AAM level: Maximum performance
Power-up in Standby (PUIS) supported: Yes
Power-up in Standby (PUIS) enabled: No
Advanced Power Management (APM) supported: No
CompactFlash Association (CFA) supported: No
General Purpose Logging (GPL) supported: Yes
Streaming supported: No
Media card pass through supported: No
Extended power conditions supported: No
Extended status reporting supported: No
Write-read-verify supported: No
Free-fall control supported: No
TRIM command supported: No
SCT command transport supported: Yes
NV Cache enabled: No
NV Cache Power Management supported: No

[lordtalon]

SMART Values Cont.

SMART ATTRIBUTES:
ID Description Status Value Worst Threshold Raw Value TEC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Raw Read Error Rate OK 200 200 51 0 N.A.
3 Spin Up Time OK 171 156 21 6425 N.A.
4 Start/Stop Count OK 97 97 0 3946 N.A.
5 Reallocated Sector Count OK 198 198 140 12 N.A.
7 Seek Error Rate OK 200 200 0 0 N.A.
9 Power On Time OK 90 90 0 7621 N.A.
10 Spin Retry Count OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
11 Calibration Retry Count OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
12 Power Cycle Count OK 100 100 0 392 N.A.
192 Power off Retract Count OK 200 200 0 82 N.A.
193 Load Cycle Count OK 199 199 0 3946 N.A.
194 Temperature OK 121 93 0 29 C N.A.
196 Reallocation Event Count OK 193 193 0 7 N.A.
197 Current Pending Sector Count OK 194 194 0 1006 N.A.
198 Uncorrectable Sector Count OK 198 198 0 384 N.A.
199 UltraDMA CRC Error Count OK 200 200 0 0 N.A.
200 Write Error Count OK 142 142 0 7762 N.A.

[lordtalon]

Better Explanation of Whats going on

I can get the drive to read somewhat. Some things play some things won't. Then sometimes the drive just goes away without warning. It did not do this before I had to change power supplies. Also, the drive shows up as a local drive and is inaccessible when it does show up as this. Some items on the disk play with no problems at the start then halfway thru they start skipping and slowing down. I have also noticed that the drive is not as load as it once was.