WD 3TB My Book External keeps disconnecting from laptop

Hi,

I’ve had a 3TB My Book drive for a few months now and, for some reason, lately it keeps disconnecting from my laptop, resulting in a window flashing up saying it needs to be formatted before use. When I first got the drive I formatted it and, while I have the bulk of my data backed up, I don’t want to go thorugh the long pain of reformatting a 3TB drive! Does this indicate a problem with my laptop, a hardware or software issue with the drive, or do I simply need to reinstall the relevant drivers?

I’ve ran scans using both the WD software and SeaTools and both tell me the drive is fit and healthy. I really don’t want this to be a sign that the drive is failing - this is my 3rd drive of this type in a year as the other 2, through no fault of mine, failed after only a few months of use. If it wasn’t that I was protected by the warrenty I would have stopped dealing with WD a long time ago and switched to Seagate.

Thanks in advance, looking for any help I can get!

Tom.

UPDATE:

Right, so after doing a Short Generic test using SeaTools, I’m now being told that the drive has failed that particular test. Great, just great. Does this mean this drive is now almost a goner? If so, I am unbelievably annoyed with Western Digital.

Also, if it helps, here’s the info from the drive which I pulled from the WD Data Lifeguard software:

[Deleted]

[Deleted]

Just to be sure run the extended test with DLG, if the test completes successfully you have a data corruption problem, just format the HDD to fix it. If the test fails, you would need to replace it. 

Many thanks for the responce, I’ll try this tomorrow. Do you have any idea roughly how long it will take to perform an extended test on a 3TB drive? It’s very difficult to keep the laptop running overnight but, if I need to, I need to make some preparations beforehand.

Thanks for the help,

Tom.

Depends on the computer, but between 4-6 hours.