Connecting external hard drive crashes Explorer in Windows

[M_I]

Hi there. I have this old hard drive taken out from my previous laptop and I put it into an external USB 3.0 case to be able to access all the data that I have gathered in all these years. Explorer in Windows 11, running on my HP Envy x360, does see the drive and shows the folders, but it'll close on its own every now and then, whether I'm copying some data, or watching a movie, or even browsing through the contents. At first I thought it was a Windows 11 issue so I installed Windows 10. Same thing. So now I'm sure it's a hardware thing. The same external drive blends flawlessly with Windows 10 on my previous laptop. I'd be thankful if someone could identify the probable cause(s), and suggest some solution.

[erico]

Hi @M_I 

 Is this a legacy electromagnitic hard disk or an SSD?

This is one of the reasons I switched to SSD products.

I suggest opening the Device Manager and then connecting the external drive to the USB 3.1 port to check the current useage.

Have you tried accessing the hard disk by use of a different laptop or desktop PC?

If you can access it, I suggest transferring the data to an SSD or secure cloud storage.

The old hard disk could be on its way to bits and bytes heaven.

Testing a hard disk

https://uk.pcmag.com/storage/133242/how-to-check-your-hard-drives-health

[M_I]

Thanks for your prompt response to my query. Yes, it's an old-fashioned magnetic  HDD, not an SSD but It has ZERO surface problems. And as I mentioned, it is accepted and accessed by my 10-year or so old laptop without a problem.

I'd be grateful if you could kindly elaborate this step: I suggest opening the Device Manager and then connecting the external drive to the USB 3.1 port to check the current useage. My laptop only has USB 3.1 ports. I have tried to connect the drive on both ports but the results is the same. The older laptop has USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports where this drive works just fine.

By the way, when I connect the drive it is shown as USB 3.0 disk in device manager.

[erico]

I may have stated that " I suggest opening the Device Manager and then connecting the external drive to the USB 3.1 port to check the current useage" a bit too quickly. It used to be simple to see what the current draw of a USB device was by use of the Device Manager. That is no longer the case with Windows 11.

I now use a PowerJive usb device to check the current draw and voltage of connected usb devices.

I have done that with the Western Digital Elements external disk that I use for backup on my desktop PC. It only uses 1 milliamp. Your external disk adapter with the older hard disk may draw more current than that. That could be what the system board of your more recent notebook is unhappy with.

Since your disk is shown as a USB 3 device in device manager try right clicking on it and selecting power management to see if it shows the current draw.

[M_I]

Thanks Erico. The device manager only shows power state for the USB 3.0 device. In my case it shows the state to be D0 (fully powered) and sometimes D3 (deepest sleep). I'll try to use the tool that you mentioned and see what I get.

Oh I realized that the tool that you're talking about is a hardware thing! Hmm. I'll try putting the drive in a USB 3.1 case as well as a USB 2.0 one and see if the matter is resolved.

[erico]

I lust looked at the display on my powerjive adapter. It is 100-130 milliamps for the WD Elements external disk, not 1 milliamp.

[M_I · Accepted solution]

I connected a USB 2.0 cable with the disk, and it works. Not a solution per se but at least I can reliably use the drive for backups.