I recently bought a gaming laptop and needed extra storage, so I connected an older 1TB USB drive. It has started behaving strangely: files refuse to delete, formatting will not complete, and Windows' repair or error-checking process either acts as if the drive is disconnected or remains stuck for over an hour. The files currently on it are empty, so I don't think it is busy scanning a large amount of data. Is the drive corrupted, extremely slow, or likely failing?
3 Answers
Those symptoms strongly suggest the drive or its connection is failing rather than simply being slow. First try a different USB cable and port, preferably on another computer. If the drive contains anything important, copy it off before running repairs or formatting. If it keeps disconnecting, becomes read-only, or hangs during basic operations, replacing it is usually the safest option.
A failed format and stuck error checking are not normal. You can test the drive with another cable, port, or computer, but avoid repeatedly forcing repairs if you plan to recover anything later. If it fails the same way elsewhere, retire it rather than using it for storage you need to rely on.
Check its health with a disk-monitoring utility such as CrystalDiskInfo. Look at the overall health status and the reallocated, pending, and uncorrectable sector counts. If those values are warning or failing, the drive is at the end of its life. Even if the files appear empty, the drive can still be struggling with damaged sectors or a failing USB enclosure.
There isn’t anything important on it, but it sounds like replacing it is probably better than trusting it with future files.