WD External USB drive causing Windows Event ID 11

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I have a new 4TB WD “My Book” external USB drive (part number WDBFJK0040HBK-04) , and it is repeatedly causing the same Windows error at random times each and every day.  The error shows in Windows Event Viewer as Event ID 11, “The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk3\DR3.”  The drive is connect to a USB 3 port on the back of a new HP z230 Tower Workstation running Windows 7 Professional 64bit.  The drive is used for daily backups using Windows Backup, and the errors seem to occur at a variety of times, including when Backup is not running.

I have run both short and full diagnostics on this drive using both WD Utilities and PC-Doctor, and also Chkdsk, and every test completes successfully, indicating that there are no recognizables issues with the disk.

As a further reference, I also checked the older computer that this workstation is replacing, and it also had gotten the same error with a different model of WD drive, which was a 2TB model (part number WDBW2A0020HBK-01).  That older computer was an HP Pavilion m9280f, also running Windows 7 Professional 64bit.

Does anyone know why these WD drives cause this error, and whether this is something that can be resolved?

 
2

valerior,

It is possible an application installed on these workstations is conflicting with the SES Driver used by WD disk drives. I would recommend disabling services and/or start-up items not related to Microsoft Windows in order to properly isolate the conflict.

3

The timing of these errors suggests that they may be following the computer awakening from sleep.  One example is the start of a scheduled backup after the computer has gone to sleep.

4

I have since received and installed a replacement drive from Western Digital, and monitored the situation for several days now.

It would appear from my daily reviews of the Windows Event Viewer that occurrences of the related error (Event ID 11) have been reduced significantly (90+%) since the disk was replaced.  I think it is safe to interpret from this that the error was disk related.