External Hard Drive disconnects/reconnects itself

[Jasna44]

Hello,

I just want to watch a movie on an external drive but vlc stops randomly within 10~25mn with a bad file descriptor error. Media player classic stops the same way but without any error message. The disk itself works normally as a storage, I'm not encoutering problems when manipulating files.

I plugged the hard drive on my son's pc running windows 7 and video worked flawlessly.

What I tried (step by step) : I readed tons of forums, I made sure everything is on performance mode when ac, I tried with another hard drive, I removed standby (sleep) features in windows power management, I disabled windows indexation, I ran testdisk that returned no error, I reseted USB driver, hp technician unticked "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" from all listed USB devices, I unticked "USB legacy support" from Bios, I made a drive exeption in my antivirus...

Results : Video still stops randomly within 10~25mn on this laptop.

My stepdaughter also has the same external drive that she uses on her hp pavillon dv6 running windows 7 to watch movies and it works just great.

This is very annoying. Even for troubleshooting to view the results I have to wait ~25mn each time I change something. How a so simple task has become such a pain 😕

   What's the problem ?

   Laptop hardware failure ? Is usb voltage or sleep mode involved/tweakable in registry ?

   Windows 8 USB 3.0 driver issue ? Can I revert to USB 2.0 drivers (I don't mind lack of speed) ?

   Any suggestions ?

Specs :

HP ProBook 450 G1 - Windows 8.1.

Toshiba 1To external USB 3.0 hard drive that plays videos correctly on other pc's.

[MereckTheTechGu]

OK, I think you have bad sectors. And the USB driver is probably wrong. Follow these steps to fix the bad sectors.

1.  Click this link.

http://download.cnet.com/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool/3001-2094_4-10974082.html?hlndr=1/HPUSBDisk...

2. Connect the External HDD.

3. Copy all your data onto the computer.

4. Go to the Downloads folder.

5. Double-click HPUSBDisk.exe(Right click the file and click Run as adminstrator)

6.  Click your External HDD in the first dropdown list.

7. In the second dropdown click NTFS.

8. Click Quick Format.

9. When done formating copy your files back to the HDD.

Follow these steps to reset the USB driver:

1. Swipe in the Charms.

2. Tap or click Search and search for Device Manager

3. Look for something like USB controllers

4. Find yours and right click it.

5. Click uninstall, and when prompted DONT CLICK Delete driver software.

6. if needed, restart the computer. Otherwise, restart manually.

I hope I helped!

[Jasna44]

Thank you for taking the time to reply, but as I mentioned before, the disk works flawless on other pc's  &  other external disks plugged on that laptop does the exact same error.

However, in doubt, I ran testdisk that returned no error on the disk.

I tried to reset the USB driver with no better result. Please note that each time I change something I have to wait 30mn for the results so please, take your time to read carefully my first post & maybe ask for more details before rushing in any suggestion because on my side it's quite laborious as I previously said !

[Jasna44]

This morning, I was helped by mohamed, technical assistant from hp france.

In windows device manager, he unticked "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" from all listed USB devices. He also activated something relative to storage in the hp security assistant.

Edit : Problem not solved.

[Jasna44]

Disappointment, the problem is still here. Maybe it worked earlier because the mouse has moved... idk...

Anyone ?