External USB hard drive case, HD keeps going raw

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discord37

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I have a lot of files, I like to digitize my music & movies and I have a lot of digital books, & store on my computer. I have 3 internal hard drives for various things and one 3 TB hard drive I keep in an external USB case (Rosewill brand if that matters). I don't disconnect it every time I shut down, I just shut down, in case that matters.

A few months ago my external HD went raw, I got a new WD drive since it was under warrantee still. Last week the few months old went raw and after restoring most of the files (mostly movies movies and some mp3s, nothing executable that could cause harm) over the weekend, it went raw again.

Can my External case be causing this somehow? It seems weird one hard drive did it after 2 years, and a new one after only a few months. I don't have a hookup for a 4th internal drive which stinks since I have 2 empty bays.

Thanks ahead for any help.

My backing up:
I have Carbonite to back up the internal drives, but I'd have to pay double to include the external drive. I have a 2TB drive I swap in rarely to back up files that would be hard to re-do. Last week after a 3 month old HD went raw in the external drive I finally bought CrashPlan which does back up the external for the same yealy price as Carbonite.

Windows 7 pro, plenty of ram and CPU, I do a little gaming.
HD1 is an SSD with just Windows and a few other apps installed
HD2 is most programs and some files
HD3 is all files
HD4 is external and all files
 
Solution
Ralston18
Perhaps you hit some threshold that confused the external case firmware because it saw 3 TB available and can only address 2 TB so to speak.

Or just the case starting to fail because of age. It will be interesting to hear what Rosewill says about it all.

Also, you mentioned that you are backing up to other internal drives. That is very good. However a power hit or some other event that impacts the entire PC could lose everything. I.e., you lose all internal drives.......

Backups should be physically somewhere else: another PC, a NAS, and to be really safe - off site.
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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The common factor is the external (Rosewill) USB case. Could be that the case/components are aging and becoming problematic.

However, the USB port being used should be checked - maybe the port is no longer what it should be.

Have you tried running the WD utility to see if that comes up with anything?

Check Rosewill's site to see if there are any similar FAQ or Forum entries corresponding to your problem.

Probably not worth the risk to continue using the case. Could fail castrophically permanently lose data on the hosted drive.
 
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discord37

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Thanks for the tips!

I just had another thought, this HD case says Maximum Capacity is Up to 2TB, I wonder if that has anything to do with it, I have to format the 3TB drives internally. But I was using a 3TB drive in it for I think 2 years before I had a problem, so just a thought. The newer model of this case is USB 3 (mine is USB 2) and it can handle 4TB so I guess it is time anyway for a new case.

I just sent a support question about this to Rosewill. I have been using the same external case for 5 years. It could be time to replace it (I use tech to end of life unless there is a real need to replace it sooner).
I tried to google the problem a lot but the only thing that came up was how to recover some files from a raw drive. I just hope if I end up doing that this stops. I don't mind buying one if it is the solution, but I'm not made of money and I hate to buy things I don't really need.

Buying a new external case is probably the next step, though I wish I could pinpoint the problem. Reformatting and swapping drives around to copy files is very tedious and time consuming.

Since this drive was not being constantly backed up I haven't kept any files on it I could not re create or re get, any data I can't lose is on the internal drives.

I believe my USB port is fine on the computer, I swap which one it is plugged in sometimes and no other device has had any issues.

The drive is still raw because to format it I ran the WD quick test, it was fine, running the extended test now for kicks (Accessing my computer remotely from work to run it) but I have a feeling it won't find anything.



 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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Oct 11, 2014
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Perhaps you hit some threshold that confused the external case firmware because it saw 3 TB available and can only address 2 TB so to speak.

Or just the case starting to fail because of age. It will be interesting to hear what Rosewill says about it all.

Also, you mentioned that you are backing up to other internal drives. That is very good. However a power hit or some other event that impacts the entire PC could lose everything. I.e., you lose all internal drives.......

Backups should be physically somewhere else: another PC, a NAS, and to be really safe - off site.
 
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discord37

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Feb 1, 2016
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I'm not going to hold my breath to hear from Rosewill, they didn't even send me an automated "we got your message, someone will reply ever" so I ordered the newer version of their external enclosure since no matter what it will be faster, & not freak out at 3TB drives. And I will cross my fingers that my drive will stop going raw especially just after I spent most of a weekend restoring everything.

I agree, I am not comfortable with manual backing up to a HD that can easily be lost or damaged too. My backups are actually to backup services (except the external.. but once it's back up again it will be on that service. in the past to back it up I had to swap out an internal for an extra drive and it's a huge pain so it is not done often), to me it's worth the small yearly fee to not have to worry about forgetting to back up or bad hardware ruining your backup too.



 
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