MY Book Premiun 500GB Malfunction

I bought this unit 2 years ago and after the first year its causing issues. After I connect and use the drive after 5-20 mins the drive does the following things,

1 - Become unresponsive and constantly spins, have to disconnect the power to make it stop and work again.

2 - Windows shows USB malfunction error and the drive disappears from the windows.

3 - Write operations to the drive fails and the No.1 or 2 happen.

4 - Drive doesn’t shut off with windows and spins continuously for hours until power is disconnected.

I ran disk diagnostics on the drive but it doesn’t find any file system errors or bad sectors.

Have you tried replacing the data cable?

Also have you tried to reformat/repartition/write zeros to the drive (after backing up any data you dont have elsewhere)?

I put a small fan on my 500GB My Book and it worked for hours without trouble. It seems that some circuitry has been damaged with heat and more heat makes it malfunction. I am now thinking whether my data is safe in this drive anymore.

Contemplating whether to buy a dedicated fan for the drive or just buy a new drive??? Any advice??

so …putting a fan close to it makes these error messages go away ?

My 500GB My Book has the exact same problem. I have to replug the power to get it to work. Otherwise it will say USB malfunction. I’ve tried using other usb cable, not working. :cry: