Each time I connect it to pc it asks me to repair it. I've clicked repair but it doesn't repair it because the bar gets stuck for hours and it doesn't move much if it all. Is there a software out there that will properly repair this for free? If I ignore the Windows message about repairing the drive it lets me still view the content on it but I'd imagine there might be some files on it not working anymore or for whatever reason needs to be repaired. Basically Windows 10 is not repairing this drive properly. I need something better and preferably free.

What type of HD is this?? I know when I slammed my laptop once I SOL the hard drive and had to replace it, I opted for the cheaper one which was fine but
if you can't fix or get it back to working I would focus on the SSD types.

I wonder if you just have to go in and delete one or two of the files to then give it more space to not be stuck??
Hope someone else can help, I know enough to get in trouble with computers

If you can still access files, copy them to your computer or another HDD while you can. Once you have a back up, there are bunch of free hdd diagnostics tools you can use to verify the drive. If it mechanically checks out then you can simply format it and copy your back up back on it. I used to like Seatools from Seagate for hdd diag. Don’t run any diag before you back up your files.

What operating system are you using? Windows has a habit of asking you to repair drives which are perfectly functional. On my various Windows 7 computers, I would guess that at least half of the thumb drives, when I insert them, cause Windows to ask me if I want to repair the disk. I've had it "repair" the thumb drive (they're small compared to most hard drives so the repair doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes), and after I do that, I notice no difference. What's worse, the next time I insert the thumb drive, I get the same message.

All of these drives are formatted with FAT32. Is your HD also formatted this way? The native format for Windows was always NTFS. FAT32 is a 1990s format that is still used for backward compatibility, and is often found on external drives when you buy them.

If your disk IS formatted with FAT32, I would recommend offloading the files to another drive, and then when you format it, make sure you reformat using NTFS. Then move your files back to the drive and see what happens.

Well, technically Windows started on FAT(16) (Windows 1.x/2.x/3.x), then FAT32 (Win 95 OSR2 ~ Win XP) then NTFS (Windows NT3.1 ~ today).

Remember these never-ending CHKDSK.EXE sectors parsing in black & white MSDOS screens with the HDD headers clicking in a very scary way?

FAT16 was good for interoperability (Linux/Win/Mac) with small capacity, FAT32 for higher disk sizes above 4GB.
But I believe nearly every OS can read (and often write) NTFS now?

Back on the OP question, when that happens to me, I usually boot a Linux-based RescueDisk on USB and let a disk check runs as long as it needs to.

Ex:

• https://www.system-rescue.org/
• https://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/
• https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Of course, BACKUP EVERYTHING YOU CAN before meddling with powers you cannot possibly comprehend.

Julien

PS: Yeah... I'm old enough to remember the upgrade from Windows 2 to Windows 3...

Just to reference Julien’s age, he also remembers the first abacus.

I was part of the design team!

The documentation was written in Cuneiform, as it should at the time.

Julien

WD Elements is officially dead and I lost whatever was on it. I tried to repair the hard-drive by Windows own program but instead it killed the drive completely. I cannot erase the drive or anything. Thanks Western Digital! When do we get affordable ssd portable drives? Why are we still backing up files on Mechanical drives in 2023? Is it because these were mass produced or is it really that much cheaper for them to make over ssd? I'm pissed.

How old was the HDD?

Above 5 years of usage, you are out of its ordinary life expectancy and should expect it to fail at some point.

It doesn't mean ALL drives will fail after 5 years, but this is a reasonable expectation that drives should be replaced/backup'ed if they hold important data.

Julien

Depends on what you mean by affordable. Right now you can get a portable 2TB Samsung SSD for $115 on Amazon, which is a lot better than it used to be. People still use mechanical drives because the same amount of money might get you a 5 or 6 TB mechanical hard drive. Magnetic disks are going to be cheaper than solid-state disks for as long as both are being mass-produced because magnetic disks are far, far simpler devices. A big, spin-able slab of magnetic material with a mechanical arm to read and write from it is simply easier to make than an array of trillions of microscopic transistors.

Sorry to hear about your drive failure. Hope none of it was too important.

The only thing I will say as I have unfortunately experienced a drive failure as well and lost all my data (fortunately nothing really critical that I can't rebuild), get a Network Attached Storage (NAS) unit with at least two drive bays.

That's what I did and it has been great so far. If I lose a drive, I can just get a replacement and the remaining good drive will re-populate it. I especially needed to do this since I'm taking so many pics of my new son and wanted to minimize the chance of losing them as I offloaded them from my phone. I will eventually upgrade to a four bay NAS for greater redundancy but this two bay model is sufficient @ the moment.

The WD Elements was one I had for a year or so. It was not old at all. Probably had some rare obscure movies on it, games, software and some adult stuff. And most of the stuff I backup onto portable drives are files that are not easily found. It is what it is. I feel like I collect a bunch of junk I don't watch or play anyways. I mean the only video game I really play now a days is GTA V online for the pc because I can play with a huge community. I used to be big into playing PSO on Dreamcast online but my account was forever banned about 3 years ago on Sylverants server which I find ridiculous but it is what it is. Also, I do have pso online for gamecube too with the keyboard adapter part but I just haven't been in the mode for PSO online lately. I probably haven't played for over a year on the Gamecube version. Gamecube version has the advantage of having episode 2 on it but I really did prefer the Dreamcast version just because I'm a homer for the Dreamcast.

When buying an HDD for anything critical I try my best to factor in a warranty to my DR plans (personal, not enterprise here). Encrypted backups/data transfer to a cloud storage provider (when I say encrypted I mean encrypt your data BEFORE it leaves your network/control, don't simply trust a provider because they say your data is hosted on encrypted storage). That should cover any issues while you await a replacement volume, as well as any RAID configuration you may have in place to assist too.