I use an external WD Elements 2 TB USB 3.0 drive for my photography. I have the images and Adobe Lightroom Catalogs on the external drive. After 2 months in Florida, and probably 1,000+ images I flew home and when I tried to plug the drive into my bigger home laptop, I got the Access Denied error. I figured out it was the permissions and restored that and got it working. But all my photos from the trip were gone.
Now, being the canny computer user I am (got my first Radio Shack Model 1 in 1980) I have a backup drive. And the original images on the camera SD cards. But I was worried my Lightroom catalog with all the editing changes was gone. Luckily it wasn’t. I eventually restored the backed up photos and any that were only on the SDs.
My problem now is, do I trust this drive? Somehow these files were lost. I ran CHKDSK /F in Windows 10 and there were some back files or sectors. It went by too fast to be sure. I ran the WD test software, extended test, and it doesn’t show anything wrong with the drive. I’m not showing any errors on the drive now, with any of the software I’ve tested it with.
I could relegate it to a backup and either go with a new My Passport drive (I’ve had a number of these and no problems) or maybe an external SSD drive. Or a USB 3.1/Thunderbolt drive.
