On Windows 7 PC, WD 1T USB 3.0, has been running without WD SmartWare Installed. My Cobain Backup was running fine, then one day I noticed an error in the log - it could not find the destination directory. I could still see WD drive under My Computer but all the folders appeared to be empty. Eventually I could not see the drive at all. Connected WD drive to laptop running XP and it was fine. Reattached it to Win7 PC and it worked fine. After a few days and some successful backups the problem reoccurred. Some times when it reoccurs I cannot see the drive at all under My Computer, at other times I can see the drive but the folders are empty. I have tried many things: computer restart, connecting to another USB port, … I only have success if I disconnected the WD drive from the PC and the power source and then reconnected them. It just happened again today and was resolved in the same way. I didn’t even have to restart the computer. Any suggestions as to what might cause this?
Some of the files in the hard drive might be getting corrupted, you can try running a test with DLG, if the test completes successfully backup all the files and then format the hard drive.
I downloaded the Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and run it against the WD My Book and found no problems. Why should I reformat the hard drive (I assume you mean the WD My Book) if there are no problems?
