Having trouble with Samsung External Hard Drive Closed

Question

Hello,

I am having trouble with my 1TB Samsung M3 Portable Hard Drive. Ever since I bought it, I couldn't use it properly on my PC - most of the time it would just freeze, slowing down my PC in the process, which could only be reversed by pulling out the hard drive manually. It would then show me an error messege which indicates it encountered a problem reading a specific file on the disc, which in most cases was the $mft file. This type of errors generally ocurred when I tried to download something into the disc (which I stopped doing early on) or if the disc was unplugged manually and then plugged in again, although many times it happened for no reason at all, and the only way to make it work properly was to reboot the PC and hope it doesn't happen again. The hard drive would malfunction more often than not.

This happened from day 1 but I didn't send it back because I had important data on there which I couldn't put anywhere else. I was about to send it back just now, however, I noticed that this problem only occurs in my PC and not on any other machine I ever tried it on (including Mac), and from the little I could gather about the $mft archive (I'm no tech expert) I'm supposing it's a hardware problem in my PC, something in the electrical circuit perhaps, and not a problem in my hard drive. I've already tried changing cables, using the one from my old WD My Passport drive (which, I should mention, had an electrical problem and eventually had a short-circuit).

Am I right in supposing this? What should I do about the disk, or about my computer? Is there any way I can get it to work on my computer?

Just in case, here's some specifications on my computer:
-Windows XP 
-AMD Phantom II 555 Processor
-3.21 GHz, 1,75 RAM.

Hope I'm not missing anything. Thanks in advance!

ac3mark · Answer

What version Of USb ports does that machine have?  I am not certain if transfer speed will produce the kind of problems that you are describing, but at least start with the ports.

gomito10 · Answer

Yes, I should have mentioned it, thanks. I wasn't really aware of different USB versions until now. 

I have one "enhanced" item under USB in the device manager, which as far as I'm getting means all my ports are 2.0. The cable that came with the hard drive says "USB 3.0 compatible with 2.0".

ac3mark · Answer

They are compatible, but the transfer speed are not the same between 2 and 3.

Let me ask you this, can you access the files that you know what type they are?

Disregard the mft files, can you access the other ones?

gomito10 · Answer

Sometimes, yes. But it's rare for the drive to work properly on my pc; most of the time after a few clicks the drive will just freeze and only open the file/folder a good while later, or never, or sometimes a file (say a video file) would freeze while I'm watching it. It's as if it takes the drive too long to process information, which is why I'm guessing it has something to do with my USB ports.

gomito10 · Answer

This is interesting. This wasn't a problem with my old drive though, and the drive would freeze many times while simply navigating through it (other times, when it did function, I also didn't have any problems using files on it), but it's something worth checking. I will try putting back some of my data back on the drive to see if it works properly when the files are not interfered with, and will confirm in a few days. Thanks!

EDIT: OK, guess it didn't take that long. The hard drive froze for a moment almost instantly after connecting it (it was completely empty), and then again when I tried to put files in it. Only way to access My PC was to disconnect it (the error messege, as always, was "delayed write failed", no mention of any specific file this time).

gomito10 · Answer

Anyone?

ac3mark · Answer

Ok, I just found the product on Amazon, and read alot of the review by others that have ordered and used this drive.  It seems as though this drive is a ahit or miss, depending on the type of pc/laptop you have.

Take a look at this one post from a reveiwer:
"I took the drive to a Data Recovery service provider who informed me that the drives proprietary USB 3 interface was the problem. As USB 3 interface is integrated into the drive electronics it would have been difficult for me to do anything with the drive hence the call to an external company." 

I am not certain any amount of tweeking can fix their engineered problem.
 
"If you can't soar with the eagles, then don't fly with the flock!" - Oliver Sykes; Bring Me The Horizon

gomito10 · Answer

Well this is a shame. I guess I'll just try to use it as little as possible on my pc. Thanks for your help.

Having trouble with Samsung External Hard Drive

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