Windows 10: When replacing a damaged external hard drive

Damaged my external hard drive that I use to make backups of my File History. When connecting a new drive will it capture all the files or just where I left off when using my old drive? Using Windows 10 anniversary. Thanks

:)

 

Windows 10 error message "The semaphore timeout period has expired"

Hi

A few possible reasons that cause this error when trying to access your external hard drive could be a damaged controller that's why the hard drive fails or there could be bad sectors on the hard drive that has damaged it.

Since you're unable to stop or safely removed the external hard drive, you may try uninstalling your external hard drive through Device Manager. Check out
Uninstall or Reinstall a Device for the steps.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards.

 

WD Elements 1TB hard drive suddenly stopped working after 2 years

It is a sad reality that hard drives do fail. External drives can fail in three ways; the contents of the drive can be corrupted, the hard drive itself can suffer a hardware failure, or the electronics in the case can fail. Static discharge when plugging
or unplugging the data cable is one way the case circuitry can be damaged.

The only potentially good news is that if it is the case electronics which have failed, the physical hard drive within the case is often still undamaged. The drive can be removed from the case (with varying degrees of difficulty) and either installed directly
into a computer or into a 3rd party replacement external case. Opening the WD case will probably void any warranties on the drive though so its not something you want to do if you intend to get a warranty replacement drive from the manufacturer (or retailer).

 

I guess it will only copy the current version of your files since the older versions are only stored within File History. Can you extract the old file history folder from the damaged drive? If so you could copy it to the new drive and see if FH will recognise and add to the existing backup.