External HDD Problem

[jim45]

Hi - I seem to be experiencing a problem with my WD 500 GB ext HDD.I'm not sure if this is normal behavior,but whenever I'm watching a movie or playing some music on it,there are pauses lasting 7-8 seconds,followed by a whirring sound in the HDD (accompanied by the HDD light blinking) and after that the video/song resumes play (with a 7-8 sec skip).

And recently these "pauses+skips" are happening with greater frequency.Any idea why this
may be happening and how I can fix this? Would really appreciate any help whatsoever.
Thanks a ton!

[HDD_MASTER]

I would recommend the following. If you can see the data on the disk try and copy as much as you can to another disk ASAP. The more you run the drive the more chances of it failing completely

[HDD Spaz]

back up all data then run wd diagnostic program. you have probably got bad sectors on the disk. get the disk replaced.

[hddguy]

If your lucky it may still be under warranty.

I think HDD_MASTER is right, looks like you have got defective sectors causing difficulty in reading, which is why the song resumes after multiple read retries. Definately needs recovery and/or replacing,

[HDD Spaz]

i said that!

[hddguy]

oops, so you did! Sorry spaz, guess ive been working too hard today!!

[HDD_MASTER]

I dont believe that for one minute!

[networkpc3000]

they are right, first back up after repair. otherwise you loss more and more $

[hddguy]

I dont believe that for one minute!

If I wasnt laughing so hard, I might be offended

[jim45]

Thanks for your response guys - appreciate it.

I did run a full-scale diagnostics check (it took around 4 hours and apparently each and every sector was checked) and the results came back as "Ok".
But yet the pause/whirring/skip problem exists.Has any one experienced the same problem ? Any suggestions on what I can do to fix it ? or do I simply backup and try to get the disk replaced ?

Thanks.

[hddguy]

Do you have any other external disks? Could be a problem with your external casing, or maybe your USB connection is damaged somehow?

On another note, the diagnostics check would check the sectors sequentially, effectively causing the heads to do a slow smooth seek, whereas normal operation of the disk, bearing in mind data is pretty much stored all over your disk and not sequentially, would result in erratic repeated seeks of the HSA. You should scan with a program called Victoria, select 'butterfly' scan for a true reflection.