Seagate 5TB External (STKM5000400) keeps disconnecting

ninjag · 23 Jul 2023 at 17:44

Hi, I bought a Seagate 5TB external drive (STKM5000400) from the OC store a few days ago to backup about 1.2TB of personal files and photos (I use SyncBack for this). However, after about an hour the hard drive keeps disconnecting from Windows 11, but it still has the power light showing on.

I'm getting the following events just before it fails, the last event repeats itself about 20 times.

UASPStor. Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort3, was issued. Event ID 129
disk. The IO operation at logical block address 0x668459e0 for Disk 4 (PDO name: \Device\00000051) was retried. Event ID 153
disk. An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk4\DR4 during a paging operation. Event ID 51

I've checked out a few online sites and followed their advice about changing power management settings, disabling USB legacy support, changing the hard drive policy, using NTFS instead of ex-FAT.

I've tried different USB ports and also different cables, I've updated all the motherboard chipsets etc and BIOS to the latest. Windows error checking comes back clean and the Seagate SeaTools tests come back fine, the short repair comes back fine but the long repair seems to stick at 19%. I ran out of patience.

The SMART details are showing Read Error Rate (Worst) as 64 with a threshold of 6. The Seek Error Rate (Worst) is 60 with a threshold of 45.

This all doesn't feel right for a brand new hard drive, but I can't return it as I've already managed to populate it with 1TB of data (took many attempts with SyncBack but each hour of connected state managed to gradually fill the drive).

Can anyone offer up any advice please or perhaps recommend a good free hard drive analysis program that might help figure out what's going on? Thanks.

Snapshot · 24 Jul 2023 at 07:09

If it's faulty you'll have to send it back. Delete your data and then the partition for a little added security.

ninjag · 24 Jul 2023 at 10:00

Cheers, but sending it back isn't an option now even if multiple pass deletes etc are considered safe as there's just too much personal info on it now.

I finally managed to keep it connected for almost 3 hours and it completely the backup. I'm not sure if a few last minute tweaks within Win 11 helped or maybe the Seagate repair did something. I'll do some further checks, it's a secondary backup so I do have some redundancy in place.

I'm not convinced that the drive is faulty because I was experiencing a similar issue with my laptop and another external drive not long after installing Windows 11. Someone else online has suggested that it could be a Win 11 issue and maybe an update will come out. I'll keep my eye on it though.

OspreyO · 25 Jul 2023 at 12:46

Change the cable, use a different port. If you have have always on (powered) USB port try that. I have WDP10 4TB that would constantly disconnect, or power down and its a lot more reliable when on the always on port.

That drive never worked well on my Nvidia shield, constantly powering down. I had to use a different drive on the shield. There maybe OEM software that change the default power/sleep settings on the drive. I didn't find any for mine though.

ninjag · 26 Jul 2023 at 12:25

OspreyO said:
Change the cable, use a different port. If you have have always on (powered) USB port try that. I have WDP10 4TB that would constantly disconnect, or power down and its a lot more reliable when on the always on port.

That drive never worked well on my Nvidia shield, constantly powering down. I had to use a different drive on the shield. There maybe OEM software that change the default power/sleep settings on the drive. I didn't find any for mine though.

Thanks. I did all that and more, yet it still kept doing it. In the end it finally stayed connected for 3 hours straight, which was enough to finish off the backup. I had change a few other parameters, plus tried yet another USB socket so I'm not sure which, if any, may have helped. I had also run the Sea Tools disc repair that got stuck at 19%, so maybe that helped.

Hopefully that's it sorted, but I still want to run some test on it. Incidentally, another backup drive started doing this on my laptop not long after upgrading that to Windows 11 as well. Seems awfully coincidental, so perhaps it's a Windows 11 issue and an update will eventually come out.

Bubo · 27 Jul 2023 at 15:46

I had an external drive that kept randomly disconnecting for like a second, enough to bork any transfers, but it only seemed to do it when plugged into one of those multi-card reader addon boards that go in a spare 5.25" bay, which had a couple of usb3 ports which basically connected to the mobo usb ports via an internal cable. And also it was one of those which had both a blue USB3 cable, and a separate USB2 cable for power, which kind of thought I had to use. Anyway, I've since stopped using that card and that drive is now dedicated as a PS5 permanent external drive, and only uses the one USB3 cable for power, and it is fine. I was never able to fully bottom out exactly what was the cause, but I suspect it was using that USB2 power lead that came with it, I guess that was not needed in any regard, or it could just have been that reader board.