WD 3TB My Book External keeps disconnecting from laptop

Portable Drives My Passport
1

Hi,

I’ve had a 3TB My Book drive for a few months now and, for some reason, lately it keeps disconnecting from my laptop, resulting in a window flashing up saying it needs to be formatted before use. When I first got the drive I formatted it and, while I have the bulk of my data backed up, I don’t want to go thorugh the long pain of reformatting a 3TB drive! Does this indicate a problem with my laptop, a hardware or software issue with the drive, or do I simply need to reinstall the relevant drivers?

I’ve ran scans using both the WD software and SeaTools and both tell me the drive is fit and healthy. I really don’t want this to be a sign that the drive is failing - this is my 3rd drive of this type in a year as the other 2, through no fault of mine, failed after only a few months of use. If it wasn’t that I was protected by the warrenty I would have stopped dealing with WD a long time ago and switched to Seagate.

Thanks in advance, looking for any help I can get!

Tom.

UPDATE:

Right, so after doing a Short Generic test using SeaTools, I’m now being told that the drive has failed that particular test. Great, just great. Does this mean this drive is now almost a goner? If so, I am unbelievably annoyed with Western Digital.

Also, if it helps, here’s the info from the drive which I pulled from the WD Data Lifeguard software:

[Deleted]

[Deleted]

2

Just to be sure run the extended test with DLG, if the test completes successfully you have a data corruption problem, just format the HDD to fix it. If the test fails, you would need to replace it. 

3

Many thanks for the responce, I’ll try this tomorrow. Do you have any idea roughly how long it will take to perform an extended test on a 3TB drive? It’s very difficult to keep the laptop running overnight but, if I need to, I need to make some preparations beforehand.

Thanks for the help,

Tom.

4

Depends on the computer, but between 4-6 hours.