Here's one I have not personally seen before.
Scenario
- new USB3 SIIG Host adapter card
- new external USB3 dock
- new Seagate 2TB SATA HDD
I installed the above host adapter (in order to have USB3 ports) in a Windows 7 system and ensured the latest drivers were installed with it. Then hooked up the USB3 dock and plugged in the HDD. All was just fine.
The disk was not partitioned and I began to write backup data after allowing a quick NTFS format (portability was not a concern) and assigning a drive letter. All was still fine and this worked for a few days. Suddenly, the disk appeared offline. Checked another disk and it mounted just fine. Remounted the 'new' disk and nothing.
Checked disk manager in windows and found the attached to my surprise. Not that not only are there multiple partitions but also that the volume size is incorrect. Would like to have recovered as I had been writing data out to it!
For the partitions that show healthy, there are no options except to delete. I cannot assign a driver letter. For the unallocated space, I can choose to create a new simple volume but when I try, I only get an error message saying "the operation is not supported by this object".
Again - I have never seen a drive split itself up into multiple partitions like this, leaving also unallocated space and reporting a larger capacity. Preference is to not try to delete the partitions and start over (although I somehow doubt it will let me). I have also not seen a HDD fail like this either. I have not run surface scans but I do not believe this issue has anything to do with surface defects.
Anyone seen anything like this before?
Any suggestions? (See image)
2013-1103-1217.45-ss--HDD-Issue-.jpg
2013-1103-1220.56-ss---e1-.jpg
Probable cause:
Errors from 1 of the 3 components in the path (adapter, dock or HDD)...
Make sure that your power options are such that you do not allow the USB to power down or sleep during low activity...
You might also want to ensure that "write-behind caching" is deactivated for USB drives in case this error is persists.
I would check to see if the HDD is still under mfr. warranty & look to get a replacement if possible as well.