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Annoying problem with an external USB drive

PaddyC13
By PaddyC13
in Storage Devices
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Hi Folks,

 

Recently bought an external USB drive as a scratch disk.  It is a Toshiba  Canvio Basics 4TB device.

 

https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/toshiba-portable-hard-drives-canvio-basics-2/

 

The drive is connected to my HP ProBook 640 G1 (Quad Core i7, 16GB RAM and 256 GB SSD) which I use for ripping DVDs etc.  The laptop is running windows 10 Pro 64 bit (fully updated) and the Toshiba drive is connected to a USB 3.0 port.  When i boot the machine the Toshiba drive is visible and works perfectly.  However, if I do not access the drive for a period (seems to be 20 minutes plus) then it goes offline.  When I try to access the Toshiba drive I get a dialog box stating:

 

Location is not accessible

F:\ is not accessible

Access is denied

 

The only way to get the drive to reconnect seems to be a reboot of the PC!  I have Google'd the issue and most of the solutions seem to relate to a corrupted drive but I have checked the disk and it reports no errors.  Not sure if this is relevant but the Toshiba is formatted as NTFS.  I tried running a CHKDSK /R but the drive went offline during this test.

 

Is this a known issue with Toshiba drives?  Do I have a duff drive?  Is this a Windows configuration issue?

 

This is very annoying so any help/solution would be very much appreciated.

 

Kind regards

 

Paddy

UK

 

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That is interesting, there are some power savings measures in windows that turns of the harddrives after they idle for a specific amount of time, (if I recall correctly, default value is 20 minutes for balanced power plan) BUT when you try to access that drive it should spin it back and you should be able to access it with a slight delay. Have you tried that HDD on a different computer? 

image.png.49ee89a83bcc9f93f5daed9b35b6e0a5.png

Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > Edit Power Plan > Change advanced power settings. You can try increasing this value and see if that helps.

mY sYsTeM iS Not pErfoRmInG aS gOOd As I sAW oN yOuTuBe. WhA t IS a GoOd FaN CuRVe??!!? wHat aRe tEh GoOd OvERclok SeTTinGS FoR My CaRd??  HoW CaN I foRcE my GpU to uSe 1o0%? BuT WiLL i HaVE Bo0tllEnEcKs? RyZEN dOeS NoT peRfORm BetTer wItH HiGhER sPEED RaM!!! dId i WiN teH SiLiCON LotTerrY? yOu ShoUlD dEsHrOuD uR GPU. my SYstEm iS UNDerPerforMiNg iN WarzONE. can mY Pc Run WiNdOwS 11 ?? woUld BaKInG MY GRaPHics card fIX it? MultimETeR TeSTiNG!! aMd'S GpU DrIvErS aRe as goOD aS NviDia's YOU SHoUlD oVERCloCk yOUR ramS To 5000C18

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Interesting indeed, i would have suggested the same as @Levent following the post as i'm wondering if it will help.

Gamesystem: X3700, 32GB memory @3200mhz, GTX1080 Hybrid

Unraid system: Epyc 7352, 24/48, 96GB ECC buffered @2666mhz, 2x GT710, GTX1050Ti

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Hi Levent and Caennanu,

 

Thank you for your swift replies.  Should have said, I am running under a defined high performance plan and the hard disk is currently set to never turn off.  I wonder if Windows gets confused by that?  May be setting it to 60 minutes might actually work better.  I have not tried the drive on another PC - that is a good suggestion and I will give that a go today and report back.

 

Many thanks

 

Paddy

UK

 

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21 minutes ago, PaddyC13 said:

Hi Levent and Caennanu,

 

Thank you for your swift replies.  Should have said, I am running under a defined high performance plan and the hard disk is currently set to never turn off.  I wonder if Windows gets confused by that?  May be setting it to 60 minutes might actually work better.  I have not tried the drive on another PC - that is a good suggestion and I will give that a go today and report back.

 

Many thanks

 

Paddy

UK

 

There is also USB power saving feature in that window I screenshot, try disabling that too. There is also a possibility of that harddrive just malfunctioning, thats why I suggested trying it on a different pc.

mY sYsTeM iS Not pErfoRmInG aS gOOd As I sAW oN yOuTuBe. WhA t IS a GoOd FaN CuRVe??!!? wHat aRe tEh GoOd OvERclok SeTTinGS FoR My CaRd??  HoW CaN I foRcE my GpU to uSe 1o0%? BuT WiLL i HaVE Bo0tllEnEcKs? RyZEN dOeS NoT peRfORm BetTer wItH HiGhER sPEED RaM!!! dId i WiN teH SiLiCON LotTerrY? yOu ShoUlD dEsHrOuD uR GPU. my SYstEm iS UNDerPerforMiNg iN WarzONE. can mY Pc Run WiNdOwS 11 ?? woUld BaKInG MY GRaPHics card fIX it? MultimETeR TeSTiNG!! aMd'S GpU DrIvErS aRe as goOD aS NviDia's YOU SHoUlD oVERCloCk yOUR ramS To 5000C18

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Hi Levent,

 

Tried this on a second laptop - ThinkPad E460, Windows 10 Home (fully updated), i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD.  Connected the Toshiba to a USB 3.0 port and got the same result as on the HP i.e. the drive became unavailable.  The power settings are set to High Performance as follows:

 

image.png.1f01842cdc21cb4cdbe31a0256e78cf1.png

 

image.png.e0b649a94c5cdf6ddc25a8381cec0075.png

 

The HP ProBook as the USB selective suspend setting set to disabled in both cases.

 

Any ideas?

 

Kind regards

 

Paddy

UK

 

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sounds like that hard drive is malfunctioning or it has some sort of internal timer to shut down the disk (which would be the first time I heard such thing).

mY sYsTeM iS Not pErfoRmInG aS gOOd As I sAW oN yOuTuBe. WhA t IS a GoOd FaN CuRVe??!!? wHat aRe tEh GoOd OvERclok SeTTinGS FoR My CaRd??  HoW CaN I foRcE my GpU to uSe 1o0%? BuT WiLL i HaVE Bo0tllEnEcKs? RyZEN dOeS NoT peRfORm BetTer wItH HiGhER sPEED RaM!!! dId i WiN teH SiLiCON LotTerrY? yOu ShoUlD dEsHrOuD uR GPU. my SYstEm iS UNDerPerforMiNg iN WarzONE. can mY Pc Run WiNdOwS 11 ?? woUld BaKInG MY GRaPHics card fIX it? MultimETeR TeSTiNG!! aMd'S GpU DrIvErS aRe as goOD aS NviDia's YOU SHoUlD oVERCloCk yOUR ramS To 5000C18

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You have connected this to an USB3 port. Do you have the same issue when plugging it into an USB 2 port? (should still work, just not as fast).

Just wondering if it maybe is specific to the usb3 or not

Gamesystem: X3700, 32GB memory @3200mhz, GTX1080 Hybrid

Unraid system: Epyc 7352, 24/48, 96GB ECC buffered @2666mhz, 2x GT710, GTX1050Ti

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sollution 3 and 4 could apply to you to from the following article.

https://www.easeus.com/storage-media-recovery/external-hard-drive-keeps-disconnecting-and-reconnecting.html#targetText=Here's%20how%20you%20can%20do,this%20device%20to%20save%20power.

Gamesystem: X3700, 32GB memory @3200mhz, GTX1080 Hybrid

Unraid system: Epyc 7352, 24/48, 96GB ECC buffered @2666mhz, 2x GT710, GTX1050Ti

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5 hours ago, Caennanu said:

You have connected this to an USB3 port. Do you have the same issue when plugging it into an USB 2 port? (should still work, just not as fast).

Just wondering if it maybe is specific to the usb3 or not

Hi Caennanu,

 

I have tried the drive in other USB ports but alas I do not have any USB 2.0 ones.

 

Kind regards

 

Paddy

UK

 

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On 8/23/2019 at 6:42 PM, PaddyC13 said:

Hi Caennanu,

 

I have tried the drive in other USB ports but alas I do not have any USB 2.0 ones.

 

Kind regards

 

Paddy

UK

 

Aside of the standby stuff i posted earlier, i have no other idea's.

Makes me really curious as to what is causing this tho!

Gamesystem: X3700, 32GB memory @3200mhz, GTX1080 Hybrid

Unraid system: Epyc 7352, 24/48, 96GB ECC buffered @2666mhz, 2x GT710, GTX1050Ti

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Hi Folks,

 

Gave up on the Toshiba drive and returned it to Amazon for a refund.  Bought a 4TB Seagate USB drive and this does not have the problem so far.

 

Looks like it was a disk issue rather than Windows?

 

Thank you to everyone for their help.

 

Kind regards

 

Paddy

UK

 

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