hdewald

Q: USB External Harddrive Dropping

Hello!

 

     I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) with OS X El Capitan (10.11.6) on it and I am noticing issues with my external harddrive (a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB 7200 RPM  SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5 Internal Hard Drive in a BlacX Duet HDD Docking Station). These issues were already present with Mavericks and I had hoped an update would fix things, but it hasn't. Originally, my harddrive was NTFS formatted, and with Mavericks I had used Tuxera to read and write from it. I experienced these drops, where the harddrive would disappear from finder and a notification for failing to eject the device would pop up. I suffered it, but hoped for the best with an upgrade to El Capitan. After updating, Tuxera no longer worked and so I decided to simply scrap what I had on there and reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (or HFS+). Sadly, I still see the drops.

 

     It seems to happen more frequently under a heavy write load. I've tried: switching docks on the Docking Station, using a different type-B USB cable, alternating between the USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports on the MacBook, using repair from the disk utility (during which an error actually occurred once and it wasn't able to complete, though it worked on the second attempt just fine), running an Apple Hardware Test (which showed another issue likely related to RAM, a 4MEM/60 error, which was quite surprising and deserved attention but is probably unrelated), and testing the harddrive on my Windows 7 computer (for which I had to use a 10 day trial of Paragon HFS+). Nothing really showed a likely cause for the issue. I can live around this if need be, but the mystery of the origin of the problem irritates me.

 

     Every time before the drop, I see a sequence of messages in the console that typically look like this:

 

7/23/16 8:49:37.000 PM kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.

7/23/16 8:49:37.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - will be reset!

7/23/16 8:49:38.000 PM kernel[0]: 038729.245264 PRT2@14200000: AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to create device, disabling port

7/23/16 8:49:39.000 PM kernel[0]: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 152D20352000 0x152d 0x2352 0x100, 2

7/23/16 8:49:48.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - failed to re-instantiate!

7/23/16 8:49:48.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - USB Mass Storage stack will be terminated!

7/23/16 8:49:48.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - fConsecutiveResetCount = 1.

7/23/16 8:49:48.000 PM kernel[0]: disk2s2: device/channel is not attached.

7/23/16 8:49:48.000 PM kernel[0]: disk2s2: media is not present.

 

or this:

 

7/24/16 5:06:44.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - fConsecutiveResetCount = 1.

7/24/16 5:06:56.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - will be reset!

7/24/16 5:06:56.000 PM kernel[0]: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 9A60FFFFFFFF 0x152d 0x2352 0x100, 2

7/24/16 5:06:56.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - fConsecutiveResetCount = 2.

7/24/16 5:07:21.000 PM kernel[0]: SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-34)SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-60)Vulnerability Protection encountered an error (-60).

7/24/16 5:07:21.000 PM kernel[0]: SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-34)SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-60)Vulnerability Protection encountered an error (-60).

7/24/16 5:07:21.000 PM kernel[0]: SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-34)SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-60)Vulnerability Protection encountered an error (-60).

7/24/16 5:07:22.000 PM kernel[0]: SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-34)SepNdcStream_inspectData: ndc_buffer_submit failed (-60)Vulnerability Protection encountered an error (-60).

7/24/16 5:07:26.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - will be reset!

7/24/16 5:07:27.000 PM kernel[0]: 111800.236481 PRT2@14200000: AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to create device, disabling port

7/24/16 5:07:29.000 PM kernel[0]: 111802.469560 PRT2@14200000: AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to create device, disabling port

7/24/16 5:07:32.000 PM kernel[0]: 111804.833032 PRT2@14200000: AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to create device, disabling port

7/24/16 5:07:34.000 PM kernel[0]: 111807.460222 PRT2@14200000: AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to create device, disabling port

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: 111810.556491 PRT2@14200000: AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to create device, disabling port

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - failed to re-instantiate!

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - USB Mass Storage stack will be terminated!

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: USB device 152D235214200000 - fConsecutiveResetCount = 3.

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: disk2s2: device/channel is not attached.

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: disk2s2: media is not present.

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: disk2s2: device/channel is not attached.

7/24/16 5:07:38.000 PM kernel[0]: disk2s2: media is not present.

 

I have plenty more of console messages that I've saved, but I don't wish to make this post any longer than I already have.

 

Any help/advice would be appreciated!

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Aug 1, 2016 4:14 PM

Close

Q: USB External Harddrive Dropping

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by hdewald,

    hdewald hdewald Aug 20, 2016 12:08 PM in response to hdewald
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 20, 2016 12:08 PM in response to hdewald

    So I believe I managed to remedy this, for all who may experience anything similar. The key issue became more noticeable as I found reading and writing to the disk on my Windows 7 desktop using Paragon HFS+ became less and less successful.

     

    Apple Disk Utility repair, whether done through OS X Recovery or a normal boot, doesn't seem particularly stellar at noting the presence of bad sectors. Using my desktop and booting a SeaTools DOS CD showed me that my hard drive SMART was tripped, and a Long Test Error Code of A7F0A056 was given. I figured it was bad sectors from it dropping out of finder here and there when it was a NTFS drive read by Tuxera, and perhaps the sectors weren't all accounted for when the drive was reformatted as HFS+. This could explain why the drive ran rather well when it was reformatted for a bit, and then when it started dropping out of finder again how it continued to drop with increasing frequency. And then how these continual drops began to have an influence on reading and writing to the disk using my Windows 7 desktop and Paragon HFS+; the number of bad sectors could increase from lack of proper ejection of the drive on each drop.

     

    I took a couple steps to fixing this. I read online that a complete erase, changing all the bits on the drive to 0, can sometimes help with nonphysical bad sectors. So first, I ran a Full Zero Erase on the drive using SeaTools. It took a couple attempts, with SeaTools crashing occasionally. However, it seemed to crash at higher and higher percentages of completion each time. I took that to mean that I was slowly handling the bad sectors despite those same sectors occasionally bringing down SeaTools with it. A rather handwavey explanation, but I can't explain otherwise how it managed to eventually get to completion.

     

    Next, I reformatted the drive using Disk Utility on OS X Recovery (opting for that over a normal boot Disk Utility because it seemed to handle the drive better that way when the drive was "broken"). I chose the exFAT format this time as I figure Tuxera and Paragon HFS+ could have also had a hand in messing up things. I'll simply have to ensure I don't have any individual files over 4gB now, I suppose.

     

    After it was reformatted using my Mac, I then ran an extra Disk Check (with the Repair Bad Sectors option checked) using my Windows 7 desktop. I figured this could help note/register any true physical bad sectors that my Mac may run into and not handle as well. Seeing how the exFAT setup is for both Windows and Mac computers, I thought any scans/repairs/checks from either OS would impact performance using the other. And if my Mac couldn't handle running into unexpected bad sectors often, I'd use Windows to mark those bad sectors first. If Paragon HFS+ had allowed for Disk Check on NTFS formats, I may have been able to save what was still on the drive. But the drive was too polluted with bad sectors to be recoverable without a diskchk.

     

    Lastly, and this was largely a personal and likely unnecessary step, I got a StarTech SATDOCK2REU3 2.5" & 3.5" Black SATA II Hard Drive Docking Station and Standalone HDD / SSD Duplicator so I could use USB 3.0 instead of USB 2.0. I figured that most of the issues originally occurred when I was writing a significant amount to the drive and, as a precaution and a personal preference, I upgraded my interface with the drive.


    So now the drive seems to be working just fine. No problems so far. You may wonder why I bothered so much when it was very likely that, due to the age of the device and its very likely exposure to more movement and impact (not being well secured in a desktop case), it was simply its time. Well, I have 2 more 1TB SeaGate drives of the same age as this one running just fine in my desktop despite multiple moves. So I take the cynical view that it was not the drive, but its continual abuse by unsupported formats, finder dropouts, and improper disk repairs that caused a large number of soft bad sectors to appear. If the harddrive is truly more physically damaged, I suppose I'll see over the next few months as the problems reappear. I'll keep this post updated if problems return. But it's a friggin' terabyte, so it makes no sense why you couldn't just cordon off the bad sectors continuously and simply whittle that size down. ****, half the drive could be bad sectors and I'd still be happy with a 500gb external. But whatever.

  • by hdewald,

    hdewald hdewald Aug 21, 2016 5:09 PM in response to hdewald
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 21, 2016 5:09 PM in response to hdewald

    Nevermind, it started dropping out again. I ran a chkdsk using Windows 7 Safe Mode w/ Command Prompt and was given the error of "The disk does not have enough space to replace bad clusters" and "Corruption was found", and then the disk check stops. This error occurred even after freeing up another 48gb, so I imagine it's done. Lesson learned: if using a dock for an internal drive, make sure to wait a sufficient amount of time between turning on and off the dock to allow the platter to stop spinning, as well as properly package the drive if moving it.