Hard drive and hard disk problems

[JawaJuice598]

I Have noticed. My Perfectly Fine 2TB BUP Slim Drive was Healthy, but 1 Month using it on my (HP EliteBook x360 1030 g3) has made It deteriorate for no reason. now - i don't know if It's me making it bad, but Now it thinks when it is plugged in, there's 2 identical ones. now It just makes File Explorer Stop responding, if i close the app i go into a BSOD. I dont know what else to do because Im' low on space and i somehow Game on it, but the 256GB M.2 NVME somehow is full from nothing, its like 80GB isn't available.

[TheOutlawed]

Hi @JawaJuice598 

Got it — sounds like you’re dealing with a combination of potential drive enumeration corruption (external HDD showing up twice, triggering Explorer hangs) and internal NVMe storage misreporting or space loss, which may be caused by either Windows indexing/cache bloat, restore points, or even partition ghost space.

Here's what you may try:

Step 1 – Inspect from Disk Management

1. Press Win + X → Disk Management.

2. Let the list populate fully — this can take a minute if Explorer is freezing.

3. Look for your 2 TB external drive (check the size to be sure).

   • You might see two volumes with the same label (e.g., “Seagate BUP Slim Drive”) — one might be an offline, hidden, or duplicate drive letter instance.

4. Note whether it’s Basic or Dynamic, and what drive letters (e.g., E: and F:) are assigned.

If you see two letters for one physical disk:

• Right-click one of the duplicate volumes → Change Drive Letter and Paths → Remove the extra letter (leave only one).

• Safely eject and reconnect the drive.

Step 2 – Reset USB Enumeration Cache

Sometimes Windows keeps “phantom” records of the same USB storage device.

1. Open Device Manager → expand Disk drives.

2. Right-click every entry that looks like your external HDD → Uninstall device.

3. Do the same under Universal Serial Bus controllers for any USB Mass Storage Device entries.

4. Reboot, then plug the drive back in to force a clean enumeration.

Step 3 – Run Basic Disk Health Check

Run this from an elevated Command Prompt:

chkdsk E: /f /r

(replace E: with your actual drive letter)

If it finds errors or pending sectors, note them — they can explain slow response or BSODs if Windows retries I/O endlessly.

Step 4 – Check USB Power Settings

EliteBooks are aggressive with USB power saving. To rule that out:

1. Open Device Manager → Universal Serial Bus controllers.

2. For each USB Root Hub (USB 3.0): right-click → Properties → Power Management tab → uncheck
   Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.

3. Reboot and test again.

Step 5 – Free Up Hidden NVMe Space (Generic Check)

To understand your missing 80 GB on the internal SSD:

1. Open Disk Management again and look for unlettered or “Recovery” partitions.

   • HP Sure Recover and Windows Recovery often reserve ~20 GB–40 GB each.

2. Run Disk Cleanup → Clean up system files to clear Windows Update, System Restore, and Hibernation data.

3. Optionally run WinDirStat (free tool) to visually see what folders are consuming space.

If, after all that, File Explorer still hangs or the system BSODs, I’d suspect either:

• The USB controller firmware (check HP Support Assistant for BIOS/firmware updates), or

• The external drive’s USB-SATA bridge firmware (Seagate drives sometimes need re-flashing, but that’s handled by Seagate support).