I have a WD 320gb external hd. It's about three years old.
Recently I was trying to back up some files to the drive which took so long that I never got to finish it as I was getting error messages saying it couldn't save or copy to my external drive.
Next time I tried to access the external drive, the computer would not recognize it (it was humming and the light on but not blinking at this point). To make a long story short, it was eventually recognized by the computer after more than half an hour or so while I was doing something else on the computer. But when I clicked on the drive letter in explorer, it was empty - no folders, no files. When I checked properties of the drive, it indicated raw drive with 0 bytes capacity and 0 bytes used. All this time the drive was still humming and light blinking.
Several hours later, I tried again and this time it took over an hour for the external drive to be recognized. However, this time all folders and files appeared to be in tact. So I'm currently in the process of copying the files over to another external drive as well as the internal drive before I lose them again.
My questions are:
1. Is this a sign that it is about to die on me completely?
2. Would reformatting the drive (after the copy over is completed of course) correct the problem (of slow or non recognition and slow access)?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Recently I was trying to back up some files to the drive which took so long that I never got to finish it as I was getting error messages saying it couldn't save or copy to my external drive.
Next time I tried to access the external drive, the computer would not recognize it (it was humming and the light on but not blinking at this point). To make a long story short, it was eventually recognized by the computer after more than half an hour or so while I was doing something else on the computer. But when I clicked on the drive letter in explorer, it was empty - no folders, no files. When I checked properties of the drive, it indicated raw drive with 0 bytes capacity and 0 bytes used. All this time the drive was still humming and light blinking.
Several hours later, I tried again and this time it took over an hour for the external drive to be recognized. However, this time all folders and files appeared to be in tact. So I'm currently in the process of copying the files over to another external drive as well as the internal drive before I lose them again.
My questions are:
1. Is this a sign that it is about to die on me completely?
2. Would reformatting the drive (after the copy over is completed of course) correct the problem (of slow or non recognition and slow access)?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.