I recently found my old 1TB Toshiba external hard drive that I used for my PS4 back in 2019 and later for PC stuff in 2024. I'm trying to get it working again, but every time I plug it in, my PC goes haywire! It won't let me format the drive using diskpart, Disk Manager, or even through file explorer. I used a program called CrystalDiskInfo and it shows that my sector counts are looking pretty bad. Should I just give up on this drive, or is there still hope to revive it?
3 Answers
If your PC becomes unresponsive while the drive is plugged in, that's a pretty clear sign that the drive could be on its last legs. It’s definitely not a good sign. If you get it to respond again, I wouldn’t trust it with any important files.
I think this could be more about the drive itself being problematic. Have you thought about the possibility of a virus or something stored on it? It feels like there's some sort of hidden issue that’s preventing you from accessing it properly. I’ve read that some drives can behave strangely when they’re failing, almost like they have their own mind.
It sounds like your HDD might be failing instead of just having a formatting issue, especially if the whole system freezes when you connect it. You could try running a disk check with a tool like chkdsk or another disk health utility to see if it’s throwing any errors. Just keep in mind, if it’s acting this stubborn, it might not be reliable for anything important even if you manage to get it working.

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