I keep losing power connection to hard drive during backup

Peterjohn

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I have tried searching on this forum and googling on the web but have not found anything about losing connections during backups so I am starting a new thread.
I am running Windows 10 on a new PC. The operating system runs from a Samsung 250 GB SSD. The PC was supplied with Windows 10 installed. This setup runs well and the connection to the SSD has never been lost. I keep my data on the SSD as-well. I keep my videos & photos on an internal SATA hard drive.
I have further hard drives used for backups - these are connected as required externally by USB or internally by SATA.
The hard drives are all different brands (Seagate, WD, Toshiba).
I keep losing the connection to the various hard drives during backups and also other times. Often they not recognised at boot time so when I click "This PC" the connected hard drive does not appear. Sometimes the connection is dropped during a backup or copy or other procedure and the hard drive stops appearing under "This PC". This is happening in a random way. Sometimes the computer hangs as-well as goes to 100% usage on hard drive and becomes non-responsive requiring a reboot.
The connection is always restored when I waggle and keep pressing the power connectors together enough times. It sometimes takes a few attempts to complete a backup without a lost connection event.
Is 'losing connections' a known issue with windows or more likely just poor power connections in my PC. Is there a more reliable type of connector than the molex design.
I am planning on installing Linux to see if get same problem.
I had a similar problem on my old PC running XP when the connection kept dropping during backups to external hard drive via USB.
Any comments or suggestions appreciated.
Thanks
 
Awkward this one to be honest. If it is the power connections that you have to keep pushing in to maintain a connection then it could be the new computer but the fact that you have said that it happened on your old pc would point to the hard drive connectors. I'm also a little confused because you ask about molex connectors. Molex power connectors would be used on your internal drives or at least they would have been a while back in the days of IDE internal drives but I'm not sure if the black SATA power plugs are Molex or not either way they are internal. External drives tend to have laptop type power plugs to power them up and USB plugs to connect the drives to the computer. Very often 2.5 inch external drives are only powered from the USB socket.

I have 3 external drives, two one terrabyte disks and a two terrabyte, connected to my newish Windows 10 computer and they are as solid as a rock.

I cannot see this being a Windows problem although I suppose you could not rule that out entirely. Rather than installing Linux make a live DVD or USB pen drive and boot from that ans see if your drives stay solid.
 
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Hi pete.i.
Thanks for your response. I have a brand new PC with all new connectors and new hard drives. So have lost power with many power connectors and connection points on 2 PCs. The old PC was just external USB hard drives. The new PC has internal SATA hard drives as-well as SSD for operating system. The new PC has molex connectors for the power cables to the SSD and hard drives.
With my old PC I found out that some people think windows sometimes turns off the power - power save mode ? - or gets mixed up and issues the power down signal. So the USB connection was solid - it was windows turning off the power midway through backup.
Are your external hard drives connected via USBs ?
What surprises me is if this was an issue with windows then there would be loads of mentions about it on the internet and in forums. But I do not think I have been unlucky with every power connector and USB cable for the last few years. I think they are all good. I think windows is signalling the power to turn off.
Once I get Linux installed I will find out if I get solid connections that way.
 
HHMM okay good luck with sorting your problem out it certainly sounds like an odd one. I have had computers running Windows and internal and external hard drives and never had the problems you are getting. As you say if it was an issue with Windows it would be all over the internet. I am running 3 computers at the moment. A laptop that I use, another laptop that my wife uses and a desktop in my home office. I do occasionally plug an external hard drive into the laptops but the desktop has 3 external drives connected permanently and I have never had the problem you are reporting. Hopefully someone can come up with an answer or maybe Linux might fix it.

If you do get it sorted do come back and let us know. Odd, weird faults can and do crop up with Windows and any fixes for oddities is always welcome.
 
I will let you know when sorted. I am just trying to get Linux Mint installed - I think it could days - looks complicated - I suspect I will have a good solid connection with Linux. We shall see.
 
Yes I'm afraid that any flavour of Linux is a steep learning curve in spite of what the Linux officianados will tell you. I do use it myself but more out of interest rather than a practical alternative to Windows because it most certainly is not that yet. I used Mint for a long time until I bought a new Dell laptop and found that Mint, when installed or run from a live DVD, would not run the laptop touchpad. A USB mouse worked but who on earth wants to use a laptop with wires hanging off it. Anyway whilst this is a recognised fault with Mint on some laptops all the forums got way too geeky for me so I changed to Xubuntu which does work
 
Update report.

I have also started losing power to internal SATA hard drives on an intermittent basis.
On reboot BIOS showed the SATA ports as empty.
When they are still connected with the same SATA and power cables that were working 5 minutes earlier.
With these hard drives not spinning up.
The power supply to hard drives, whether internal or external, is sometimes being lost.
Either no power on the cable from PSU or power is present but the hard drives are suddenly stopping drawing that power.
I am replacing all the power cables again.
I will start testing the PSU.
My previous PC had a budget case and so did this new PC.
I think maybe I have budget PSUs that always been struggling when have multiple hard drives connected.

I will post when I get final answer to this.
 
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