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Is my external HDD Freecom Toughdrive damaged?

Is my external HDD Freecom Toughdrive damaged? It is on 250 GB, and I have two of them, exactly the same model. I use password for both.

Always when I have left my laptop for a while, and been automatically logged off and need to log on again (though the laptop has not been shut down), I get this message always immediately:

"Windows - Delayed Write Failed            Windows was unable to save all the data for the file I:\ (this is the location of my external HDD FreeCom ToughDrive no. 1) The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere."

And then, I can't use the laptop at all, everything is freezed, I can't even make a soft restart, need to press the on/off button and "kill" everything. I guess this is not so good for my internal HDD in the long run to press the on/off button, but I have no choice.

On one occassion, I managed to view Windows Task Manager before everything got freezed:

SysFader Not responding, CPU usage 0 %, Processes 68, Commit charge 534M/3931M.

Furthermore, I have posted another question on Experts Exchange recently about this same external HDD FreeCom ToughDrive no. 1: It's about that the icon has been changed to something that looks like a sheet of paper with some blue squares on top of that sheet (so it's not the standard icon for a HDD that is displayed).

My laptop is a HP Compaq nx7300 Intel Celeron, Windows XP SP3 Pro 32-bit.

Is there any application I can purchase for Windows and for hardware maintenance and troubleshooting, such as registry cleaning, find problems with current settings, etc. etc.?
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Try running chkdsk /r on that drive.
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Just to clarify: it's my external HDD, not the internal one, that is the problem.

It's a FreeCom ToughDrive (the most durable there is), and I have had it for less than 2 years. I haven't dropped it on the ground or in the water or something like that. No rough treatments at all.
Start>run>eventvwr.msc>System, you should see a LOT of errors regarding the source DISK... Whats the Event IDs?
There are 1,995 events, most are Warning or Error, some are Information.

About 50 % of the Event IDs are either 57 or 7. These two occur almost exclusively in the latter part of the long list when I scroll down.

Other frequently occuring Event IDs are these: 11, 26, 50, 51, 6005, 6006, 6009, 7035, 7036.

These event IDs only appear one or two times: 35, 36, 610, 1000, 1003, 4201, 4202, 7022, 8033.
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Event ID 7, if it is referring to Bad Blocks, get the data off of it, and replace the drive while you can....
you can also run HDD regenerator on it : http://www.dposoft.net/      
Nobus, do you mean that it could be possible to fully repair my FreeCom ToughDrive with a HDD Regenerator? That would be just wonderful! FreeCom ToughDrives are not exactly cheap. And I got the whole 250 GB FreeCom Toughdrive almost full of data now. Could I really repair it without having to remove all data? What would the risks be? And the odds to succeed?

About other postings here:

Yes, my FreeCom ToughDrive behaves like this also on my ASUS netbook.

Is it very likely that Event ID 7 is referring to Bad Blocks on my Freecom Toughdrive?
If so, is there a risk that I anytime would run the risk to lose my data on it?

If I run a chkdsk /r on my external Freecom Toughdrive, is there any risk with doing this?
Isn't it just checking things up without doing anything?

 


"If so, is there a risk that I anytime would run the risk to lose my data on it?"
Everytime you run it, the potential to degrade the life is there, but it is a risk you are going to have to take, to either attempt the repair, or retrieve the data.....
Personally, I would retrieve the most critical data first....
read the HDD regenarator info pages :  http://www.dposoft.net/#b_hddhid
Would this be the best solution?:

I copy all data from FreeCom Toughdrive no. 1 to FreeCom Toughdrive no. 2 (which is not damaged).
N.B.! I think I should copy all data and not cut, because if something happens during the moving from HDD 1 to HDD 2 that data will be lost, right?

Should I do that, just copy everything? It's about 200 GBs.

After I put all data on my FreeCom Toughdrive no. 2, I could try to find what's wrong with FreeCom Toughdrive no. 1, and then perhaps use the HDD regenerator.
i never cut and paste - for that reason.
hdd regenerator does NOT touch your drive; read its details...
typpoos  - should be : does not change your data
I think I'll still copy everything to FreeCom Toughdrive no. 2 as I have free space for it there. Then I'll use the HDD regenerator, and then I can wipe FreeCom Toughdrive no. 1 and put new things on it, if I get it regenerated successfully.