Trouble with external usb drives. How to check what it wrong?

[totomas]

Hi all,

I have a 3 years old PC with multiple external usb HD for extra storage and travelling.

Recently one of my drive (WD My Book), which is permanently connected, has trouble being visible. It's discovered, then it's gone, then back, sometimes it works fine during the day, sometime not at all.
The driver is powered.
How can I know if it is a problem with the drive, the usb ports or something else? I also notice now that when I boot, my screen flicker about 10 times before showing the usual boot informations (before the Windows screen). That is new. I don't know if it is it related or not.
I bought an new usb drive to backup my drive which has problems, but I would appreciate if you could help me figure out if it is actually the drive who is getting old, or if the problem lies somewhere else completely.

Thank you in advance. My specs are below.

Thomas

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK FUSION CASE inc. 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X6 1055T (2.80GHz/9MB CACHE/AM3/125W)
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
8GB CORSAIR DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS250 PCI EXPRESS
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
450W Quiet Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£25)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

 

[ubuysa]

If you boot the PC with no USB devices attached at all do you still get the flicker you mention? If you do then you may have a PC problem that is affecting your USB ports.

If you don't get the flicker on boot with no USB devices attached then it's either the port itself (possible poor connection - at either end), the USB cable, or the drive.

One way to test the cable and drive is to plug them into a different PC or laptop. I'm sure you have a friend who will let you plug your WD external drive into their computer to test it.

Let us know how you get on with that.

Since the drive is USB powered (I think that's what you mean?) then my first guess would be a poor connection at the PC USB port, you could try plugging the drive into a different port and see whether that helps too.

 

[totomas]

Thank you for the input. I will test it your way and see how it goes.
The drive is not USB powered, it has a cord and connect directly to the plug in the wall.