External HDD freezes system and all programs

[Joriaan]

Hello all. I bought an 2.5" 250GB external HDD from a friend of mine that was recovering from a drug addiction, as a way of debt repayment. The debt far outstrips the value, but that's okay. I know the HDD has been through some tough times though, and as expected it doesn't work. The casing is physically fine, as is the drive itself and the cables, but there might be a non-visual problem there of course.

Anyway, when I hook up the drive (requires two USB slots) to my laptop, Windows has trouble opening the drive and my entire system seems to start lagging and freezing. The My Computer screen says it's trying to read the drive and assigns it a letter and everything, but the reading goes really slow and stops at near maximum (the adress bar fills with green to signify progress). When I disconnect the drive, everything goes back to normal and Windows asks if I want to reformat the drive, not much use of course since it's not hooked up anymore.

I installed HDSentinel, opened it, hooked up the drive again. It sees it and I can catch a glimpse of some of the problems (something about spin-up? I can recheck if necessary, this is all from memory), a bunch of bad sectors and such, 89% health. And then... everything locks up again, Sentinel becomes unresponsive, I can close it but not restart it until I disconnect the drive again, same with all programs and even browser tabs. Frrrustrating!

This is not Sentinel's problem though, when the drive isn't connected Sentinel works perfectly. Does this signify a physical technical problem, or are there other avenues I can explore to get that drive back to working order? Thank you very much for your time

[hdsentinel]

Thanks for your message.

Yes, it is possible that the hard disk may experienced some problems - which may cause that some system areas may be unreadable. This can cause that when you connect the hard disk, the overall system may be unresponsive when the hard disk surface is actually accessed.
This may be related to the USB controller / channel.

I wanted to suggest to use the double Y USB cable, but as you wrote, you already did it - which is fine
( http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_case_spin_retry.php shows further information about it).

Do you know if the hard disk has (had) an actual file system with files/folders?
It is possible that the hard disk simply has a malware/trojan which is automatically activated upon connection (by autoplay) and causes the troubles.
You may try to simply hold down SHIFT during connection of the hard disk - as this will disable autoplay and can cause that Windows will not load such malware.
Even if there is no such malware on the hard disk, the disabled autoplay causes that Windows will not try to access a problematic area, so the hard disk may be better to use.

If this does not help, I'd recommend to try connecting the hard disk for a different computer, maybe a desktop (not a laptop) to rear USB connectors attached directly to the motherboard. This may give better, stable power and data connection - just to verify if the hard disk would work there.

If this does not help (not sure if it is possible) you may try to remove the hard disk from the USB enclosure. I'd try to connect the hard disk directly to the motherboard - just to check if things are same there.

If you see that the hard disk seems working better (at least does not stop the whole system) I'd suggest to use Report -> Send test report to developer option in Hard Disk Sentinel, just to check the actual problems reported.
Then you can consider using extensive tests in Hard Disk Sentinel to reveal any possible problems (for example currently un-detected problems, eg. if the hard disk fell down to ground or so) and repair all possible troubles. For more information, please check: http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests