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Media Backup

 
 
 
Not to hijack the topic but I am having issues with one of my USB backup drives. It's a Western Digital Elements 4T hard drive and I am only intermittently able to copy files to it. I can read files but copy is hit or miss.

Whenever I can't copy a file I get this message

Untitled.jpg

I discovered it when I downloaded some music and backed it up. I backed up to the two other USB drives no problem but this last one has become faulty. I only ran my last sync on this drive a few days ago and it worked.

When backup / Sync didn't work I tried just copying a couple files over. It's hit or miss. Sometimes a file will copy over and sometimes not.

I've done some Googling on the error code. I've rebooted, changed USB slots. I started a chkdsk on it and it was taking forever. I quit it after a few hours as hit or miss copying the same file sometimes works and sometimes doesn't does not seem to be something that chkdsk would find. It's less than 25% full.

The "more details" does not click open. I tried.

I have no idea how to diagnose an intermittent I/0 error. Should I give up and call the drive fried or does anyone know what to try for intermittent failures to copy?
 
This provides the general info and possible solutions... which seem like the same solutions for 1000 different problems.

Based on the symptoms, sounds like you might want to CHKDSK on the external drive and your internal drive. Run the CHKDSK overnight on the external first.

The other thing might be your USB port (or cable).
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
This provides the general info and possible solutions... which seem like the same solutions for 1000 different problems.

Based on the symptoms, sounds like you might want to CHKDSK on the external drive and your internal drive. Run the CHKDSK overnight on the external first.

The other thing might be your USB port (or cable).
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll run it overnight. I have had no issues copying files from the computer to the two other derives. It's this one that has problems. It suggests to me that it's not a problem with the solid state drive in the computer. But I can check it too to be thorough.

I have tied multiple different USB ports for the USB drive that's giving me problems. The problem doesn't have. Sometimes a file will copy over and sometimes not. And that's with the very same file. I'll copy it over and it copies. I delete it on the USB drive and try again and it won't copy. Then I try again and it will copy.
 
I strongly think the issue is this one USB drive. When i synced to the other 2 backup drives i had no errors. When i tried this last one nothing would copy over. 10 gigs and about 500 files.
 
In my experience when external drives give trouble without provocation the problem is almost always the adapter, not the drive. There's probably an ordinary SATA drive in there along with a USB-to-SATA adapter and the adapters don't last.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
In my experience when external drives give trouble without provocation the problem is almost always the adapter, not the drive. There's probably an ordinary SATA drive in there along with a USB-to-SATA adapter and the adapters don't last.
Click to expand...

So that's the cable? Or where the cable attaches inside the external drive. This is the cable type that attaches to the external drive unit. It looks like a micro usb plus something about a half the size of a mini.

Are you suggesting I probably need a new one of these?

20201222_205659_resized.jpg
 
crazyfingers said:
What seems strange to me is that I can read and copy from the external drive. It's copying to the drive that mostly fails
Click to expand...
I have a very old external drive (~15 years old) with similar problem. Error during read/write of the one of the first sectors of the journal and then it mounts read_only and there is nothing I can do. Reading from it is fine.
I thought Hard Drive was failing. But then I used different but also very old HD with that enclosure and it had exactly the same symptoms. I concluded it's most likely electronics in enclosure is behaving funny. Interesting thing, effects happen only with ext3/ext4 file system, ntfs is fine. Also could be some interaction of very old enclosure and very new OS, I mean these 15 years old enclosure rarely used with OS from 2020.
 
crazyfingers said:
Loren Pechtel said:
In my experience when external drives give trouble without provocation the problem is almost always the adapter, not the drive. There's probably an ordinary SATA drive in there along with a USB-to-SATA adapter and the adapters don't last.
Click to expand...

So that's the cable? Or where the cable attaches inside the external drive. This is the cable type that attaches to the external drive unit. It looks like a micro usb plus something about a half the size of a mini.

Are you suggesting I probably need a new one of these?

View attachment 30934
Click to expand...

No, I'm talking about the electronics in the enclosure, not the wire.
 
I think I found out the problem but it still confuses me. I got a new external USB drive and still had problems writing to it. I'm like WFT.

I had already switched all around what devices were in which ports on the docker. Still it was the first and now the new backup drives that wouldn't work but everything else (iPod sync, USB c to my phone and tablet, one still working backup drive, and the HDMI to the monitor) worked. But I disconnected the notebook from the docker and reconnected to the docker again. All of a sudden the two drives that wouldn't write worked again.

The 3rd drive never stopped working through all this.

I don't understand why it was device specific and not all or nothing.

Well now I have 4 backups of all of my stuff including the USB drive that we have attached to the router.
 
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