USB drive Intermittently Working

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
1

OK, I would like some help as I’m getting pissed at this thing. I have a single bay MyCloud and am using a usb 4 port hub connected to the back. For well over a year, I’ve had 3 drives connected to this hub, and ALL drives appear under my Shares, and were accessible via my Windows 10 machines and through my mobile app. All good so far.

I don’t know what happened last week, but 1 of my drives was not accessible via Win10 which is how I typically accessed my drives (I have all 3 drives mapped via Win10). Tried on another pc - same. Checked my mobile app, and the drive did NOT show up (other 2 drives were still visible and fine). Logged into the MyCloud from Win10, and drive was not visible. I disconnected the drive, and connected it to my PC, it shows up fine, transferred files as I needed, and attempted to reconnect to the hub, but it didn’t show up. I removed the hub, and connected the drive direct to the MyCloud, and it did NOT show up.

I also have a PR2100, so I connected it to that, and voila, it shows up fine in my mobile app (had to upgrade to OS5, and download the new OS5 app - PITA that I have to use 2 separate apps now!) but all good, even via Win10. WTH. My other 2 drives work perfectly either direct to the mycloud, or in the hub (so its not the hub). This other drive however REFUSES to work when connected to the single bay unit - yet it was working perfectly for a long time prior. I’ve rebooted everything, tried different combo’s of connections, and at one point I DID have the drive show up (but it looked like it reset the attributes - not a biggie) but as soon as I tried to change it from public to private or change the share name, it didn’t stick. A refresh of the web page now made the drive disappear again. Sure I can leave it connected to the PR2100 as all is working fine again like that, but I would prefer to have it connected to the single bay unit along with the other 2 drives as I like to keep the PR2100 dedicated for other use.

Formatting the drive is not an option as its a 2TB drive that is approx 40% full. I’ve consistently used the EJECT function when moving the drive from the Win10 pc’s and the PR2100 (I didn’t/don’t do this with my other 2 drives connected via the hub, yet they still seem ok).

Can anyone please assist as I’m getting peeved, and fearing all the constant disconnects will eventually corrupt my data that I have on the drive.

2

One troubleshooting step. Try changing the name of the USB drive to a simple name, that doesn’t use special characters, using another computer then attach it to the My Cloud all by itself without using a USB hub or other USB hard drives.

3

I had already changed the name to a simple 7 character name using only letters. This had no effect, drive was still not showing up in any connection combination.

Randomly during connections, the drive would reappear not with the new name that I set, but with its default name showing (which included special characters such as underscore) but the drive would not be accessible. It would time out on the mobile app, and was asking for permissions in windows (no username/pw combination worked).

During 1 of many more reboots, the drive finally showed up and had its NEW name (that I set) appearing and drive was fully accessible.

It seems as though this drive has a hard time reconnecting, or the MyCloud has a hard time recognizing it even though it was solid for well over a year.

UPDATE again: Since the drive was working again, I thought I could move it into its resting position which required another disconnect. Bad Move, drive had a super hard time being recognized again and required at least 8 power cycles and 1 reboot of the mycloud itself for it to finally be recognized again. However this time it showed up again with its default name, but this time it was accessible. I logged into the dashboard, and re-setup the share and so far its holding again - until it loses power I guess. Spoke too soon: I thought the name changed (looked like it did on the shares tab) but in fact it did not. No amounts of reboots so far will allow me to change the share to private and allow me to change the name. Drive however seems like its fully accessible

4

Dumb troubleshooting question time. Have you tried replacing the USB drive’s cable? The USB cable that come with USB drives can potentially fail and lead to intermittent contact. Have several USB hard drives where the device cables went bad and worked intermittently when twisted a certain way.

5

Thanks Bennor for your replies. Unfortunately yes, I have swapped cables, and no change. For the first time in ages, my city was having some power outages yesterday, power was lost and restored approx 4 times in about 6 hours. During all these power cycles, somehow my drive restored itself and is now visible and accessible. This took over 30 reboots (not including the power outages) or so of all my drives for it to finally show up properly.

One thing I’m having a problem with is that my private shares are still accessible from my mobile app, but I cannot access the shares from any Win10 machine (when share is set to Public = Off). I get an error message saying:

mycloud

I don’t know what the highlighted area means - I’m trying to do some research on the matter. I know for a fact that I use to be able to access the shares even when public was off, so I don’t know if this changed during an update? Shares only become accessible once I make it public. I have tried every combination of UN/PW that I can possible think of. I even logged out of the mobile app, and tried again but the access denied box kept coming up.

6

The error you indicated means exactly what it says, Windows is indicating you cannot use more than one user name to access a Share that requires a username and password. This is a Windows limitation not a My Cloud caused issue. Generally this means you cannot use different My Cloud Dashboard created user names to access multiple Private Shares. Instead you should assign one user name (via the My Cloud Dashboard) to have permission to access all the Shares you need to access.

One may have to access the Windows Credentials Manager to see what User Names are being used for local My Cloud Access. One may have to delete the user name in the Credentials Manager, then unmap existing My Cloud Private Shares, then remap the Share’s using a single user name that has access to all the Private Shares you want access to.

7

Ok, please bare with me on this as its a bit confusing and I do appreciate the help!

I am the admin, and have created 1 extra user (say User B). I’m confused with how many users I need and who gets what permission. As the admin, I would like to just be able to access all my private shares and have it ask me for my credentials so I can log in using my admin UN and PW.

I’ve tried disconnecting/logging out of my mobile app which is the only thing I could think of that I was logged in to. Can you please explain what this means:

What user name? and how do I know if I’m using more than one?

8

The screen capture you posted previously was from Windows, not the mobile app. You do not create the user (User B for example) within Windows. You access the My Cloud Dashboard, select the User tab and create the user from there. Once the user is created via the Dashboard a Share for that user will likewise be created on the My Cloud. One then accesses the Shares tab within the Dashboard to set a Share from Public to Private (Public = Off). Once a Share is set to Private, one then configures each User (via the Dashboard) to have either No Access, Read/Write Access or Full Access to that Private Share.

The first time Windows encounters a Private Share on the My Cloud it will trigger a dialog box asking you to in put the My Cloud User and their password. That login information is typically saved to the Windows Credentials Manager. Windows doesn’t like it when one uses two different My Cloud User accounts (example User A and User B) to access different Private Shares. Instead one needs to configure a User in the My Cloud Dashboard to have permission to access the Shares you want to access on that Windows computer.

The My Cloud Dashboard has embedded Help that gives general information on how to setup users and shares. So does the My Cloud User Manual which can be downloaded from the WD Support website (see Support link upper left).

9

This is understood, and it is what I did. I created user B from the dashboard, and now it shows the Admin user, and User B. I’ve set all the permissions for Admin and User B, and everything works perfectly through the mobile app. Admin user (ME) has full access to all shares through my app, and User B only has access to the shares that are PUBLIC, user B cannot even see the shares set to private = OK. All is good via the mobile app.

Its Windows that I’m not understanding. Now through File Explorer

This is true, however none of my credentials work, and I endlessly keep getting that same message.

This is what I’m not quite understanding - how am I using 2 different My Cloud User accounts? User B is not trying to access anything via Win10, only I am (the admin). So do I need to create another User (User A?)

Can I not do this with the Admin user?

10

As previously indicated see the Windows Credentials Manger. See if there is a user account created for accessing the My Cloud. You may have to delete that account and any others related to the My Cloud, reboot the computer, then try accessing a Private Share on the My Cloud again using a My Cloud User that access to that and any other Private Share you want to access on that computer.

Example Windows Credentials Manager screen:

windowscredentialsmanager
windowscredentialsmanager912×600 81.3 KB

In my example the Username “admin” is the admin account on the My Cloud. In my case, that account has been configured to have access to all Private Shares on the My Cloud. If one attempts to use a different My Cloud Username when they try to map a Share (or when a username/password dialog box appears when accessing a Private Share) they may get an error because Windows already thinks it has a My Cloud username in the credentials manager for the My Cloud.

11

This is exactly what I have already. I had my credentials saved in the credential manager, had the same admin u/n, and my p/w. Still not letting me in. This was working before as it should, now I’m just fed up. Tried making a change through the dashboard, and the entire thing froze up, shares became unavailable and entire drive needed MULTIPLE reboots to work. I ended up just connecting my hub with my 3 usb drives to my PR2100 and it seems to be working the way I like it. Time will tell.

12

One typically has to delete/remove the credential, then reboot the Windows PC, then re-access the Private Share and use the correct username and password to access that Private Share. Windows, for what ever reason, sometimes has issues with NAS credentials and the only way to fix the issue is to delete the credential and recreate it.