WD 3tb External Help

chris_r · 25 Feb 2012 at 23:51

Hi guys,

Bought myself one, i already had a 1tb one which has been great, though slowish transfers, around 1 - 12mb max to transfer from laptop - external.

Anyway, my 3tb one, when i plug it in the main it comes on right away, when i put the usb into a port, it is taking upto ten mins to show up as a explorable/open-able drive in 'My Computer'. Which seems outrageous? Considering my 1tb takes seconds

Anyway, once and IF it eventually allows me to use it, i am getting 12kbps - 2mb transfer rates, so to send for example a DVD ripped movie to the drive from my Laptop, its taking literally hours!!

Any ideas what i can do? I have done the official WD drive tests and all come back ok.

Thanks
Chris

chris_r · 4 Mar 2012 at 17:10

Anyone?

I have still had no luck with it.

wonko · 4 Mar 2012 at 17:36

Just a couple of questions - have you tried it with another PC, and how does the drive show up in disk management?

chris_r · 4 Mar 2012 at 17:40

Hi,

Same result in another two computers,

shows up in Device Manager.

Disk Management; it is showing now (after ten mins of being plugged in) as:

basic
online
New Volume
(i) Drive
NTFS
Healthy

Yet; if i unplug it, just the same, 10-15 mins to recognise in my computer (USB 2.0 & 1.0) and then extremly slow transfer rates, hours for a movie, so i have yet to bother putting anything at all on it.

wonko · 4 Mar 2012 at 17:52

Hi, well if it does it with several pcs I'd be thinking there was sonething wrong with it.
Did it come ready formatted? Is it worth repartitioning and reformatting to see if it makes any difference? I'd also have a look in the windows event logs to see if there were any clues there.

chris_r · 4 Mar 2012 at 18:05

Okay,

Events, i plugged it in, refreshed and see these two. Any ideas?

1) An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk3\DR3 during a paging operation.

Source; disk

2) The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

Source: NTFS

wonko · 4 Mar 2012 at 18:21

Not sure about those I'm afraid. If you double click on them it should show you an event ID and allow them to be looked-up online.
Maybe a long-shot, but is this a USB3 drive? I've seen reports of driver problems with some chipsets, but this seems unlikely if you've tried it with several PCs.

chris_r · 4 Mar 2012 at 18:25

No, it is USB 2.0.

It is the 3tb elements one.

I am currently reformatting so will let you know. I tried the online ID search but no luck with that.

marms · 4 Mar 2012 at 19:43

Try formatting the drive with the Western Digital utility

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/3868

chris_r · 4 Mar 2012 at 20:20

marms said:
Try formatting the drive with the Western Digital utility

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/3868

Done, same results.

I am trying the W7 Disck error checking process, though i am doing a full check and it looks like it is going to take about 12 hours!!

lukext · 4 Mar 2012 at 21:14

can you look at the SMART properties of the drive in a suitable disk checking utility like hd tune?

chris_r · 4 Mar 2012 at 21:46

lukext said:
can you look at the SMART properties of the drive in a suitable disk checking utility like hd tune?

Installed HD Tune Free; what information do you need? :-)

chris_r · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:22

HD Tune results;

Benchmark

Transfer Min: 0.00MB/SEC
Transfer Max: 17MB/SEC
Average: 2.1MB/SEC

Info

This tab is completely empty for some reason?

Health

Empty, says N/A

Error Scan

Completed says; 0.1% damaged blocks. The rest shows as okay.

What does this all mean and any other ideas etc?

glenimp617 · 5 Mar 2012 at 10:10

mmmm, I'm getting a paging error on my 3TB disk (or should I say disks as I have the same error on both). These are internal though, not external.

Google shows up TONS of issues with 3TB drives.

lukext · 5 Mar 2012 at 19:34

chris_r said:
HD Tune results;

Benchmark

Transfer Min: 0.00MB/SEC
Transfer Max: 17MB/SEC
Average: 2.1MB/SEC

Info

This tab is completely empty for some reason?

Health

Empty, says N/A

Error Scan

Completed says; 0.1% damaged blocks. The rest shows as okay.

What does this all mean and any other ideas etc?

MMM, new with damaged blocks :/ doesn't sound too good mate. I would take it back if you can! If not set up a return to WD for replacement.

The slow transfer speeds make it sound like the controller board in the caddy is borked

chris_r · 5 Mar 2012 at 20:06

Health is showing now and the error is;

C5, number of unstable sectors: 3

Everything else in health is 'ok'

lukext · 6 Mar 2012 at 13:04

Well, the fountain of knowledge, wikipedia says:

Count of "unstable" sectors (waiting to be remapped, because of read errors). If an unstable sector is subsequently read successfully, this value is decreased and the sector is not remapped. Read errors on a sector will not remap the sector (since it might be readable later); instead, the drive firmware remembers that the sector needs to be remapped, and remaps it the next time it's written

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T

I'm not sure if this is a symptom or a cuase of you issues but I would contact WD and ask thier advise on the matter. You have proof that its not working right!!!!

wonko · 6 Mar 2012 at 13:35

I would be looking to have the drive replaced too, either by the retailer or, failing that, an RMA with WDC.
I've used the WDC advance RMA for internal drives a couple of times and it went pretty smoothly. I don't know if they offer this for external drives but if they do it solves the problem of finding suitable packaging.