Win 8.1 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk4\DR4

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I’ve recently moved up to Windows 8.1 (fresh, clean install, not an upgrade). 

I have a just less than 1 year old external WD My Book Essential, 3TB, connected via USB2.  The computer is a Dell Precision T5500 workstation in good working order.  The drive remains connected to the system 24/7, and is used for nightly system image backups, which succeed.

However, I’m getting an error looged in the Windows 8.1 System Event Log, apparently whenever the drive has to spin up from a powered-down state (i.e., from slow flash of drive LED).  I don’t think it logs the error every time.

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk4\DR4

 

- System
   
- Provider
      [Name] disk
   
- EventID 11
      [Qualifiers] 49156
   
  Level 2
   
  Task 0
   
  Keywords 0x80000000000000
   
- TimeCreated
      [SystemTime] 2013-12-11T13:40:04.069782200Z
   
  EventRecordID 3089
   
  Channel System
   
  Computer NoelC4
   
  Security
- EventData
      \Device\Harddisk4\DR4
      0F00800001000000000000000B0004C0030100000000000000000000160000000000000000000000B552280000000000FFFFFFFF060000005800000500000000000006122801080000000000730000000000000000000000C0DFCD0300E0FFFF0000000000000000B0D7DF0700E0FFFF000000000000000000000000000000001B000000010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Binary data:

In Words

0000: 0080000F 00000001 00000000 C004000B
0010: 00000103 00000000 00000000 00000016
0020: 00000000 00000000 002852B5 00000000
0030: FFFFFFFF 00000006 05000058 00000000
0040: 12060000 00080128 00000000 00000073
0050: 00000000 00000000 03CDDFC0 FFFFE000
0060: 00000000 00000000 07DFD7B0 FFFFE000
0070: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
0080: 0000001B 00000001 00000000 00000000
0090: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00a0: 00000000 00000000

In Bytes

0000: 0F 00 80 00 01 00 00 00 …€…
0008: 00 00 00 00 0B 00 04 C0 …À
0010: 03 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0018: 00 00 00 00 16 00 00 00 …
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0028: B5 52 28 00 00 00 00 00 µR(…
0030: FF FF FF FF 06 00 00 00 ÿÿÿÿ…
0038: 58 00 00 05 00 00 00 00 X…
0040: 00 00 06 12 28 01 08 00 …(…
0048: 00 00 00 00 73 00 00 00 …s…
0050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0058: C0 DF CD 03 00 E0 FF FF ÀßÍ…àÿÿ
0060: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0068: B0 D7 DF 07 00 E0 FF FF °×ß…àÿÿ
0070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0078: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0080: 1B 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 …
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0090: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
0098: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …
00a0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 …

 

I was not getting this error when I had Windows 7, so I suspect there may be a problem with the Windows 8.1 driver.

Data access to/from the drive once it’s spun up seems to be solid.  CHKDSK finds no problems with it.

Call me picky, but I prefer to have no errors logged.  Do you have a suggestion what I can do to stop these errors (e.g., driver update, etc.)?  

Note that I do not want to leave the drive spinning all the time.

Thanks in advance.

-Noel

2

FYI, after posting the above, I have discovered the WD Firmware Updater, and have successfully updated the drive from v1.016 to v1.022.  Let’s see if that helps. 

-Noel

3

Note that on right-clicking the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” icon in the System Tray, a controller error is still reported against the drive with the updated firmware - even though I didn’t actually choose it (I was ejecting another, older MyBook).

In short, this error is still there under some conditions:

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk4\DR4

-Noel