Ran into a really weird problem

[hutch--]

Recently I bought a gadget that you plug into a USB3 port and can load 2 HDDs which is very useful if you need to move entire partitions from one machine to another. I grabbed a couple of old disks to try it out and they just did not work at all. I pulled one of the newer disks from another machine and it ran fine and the USB data transfer rate was reasonably fast.

I grabbed more of the old disks from the same location and 4 of them would not run at all. They spin up OK but no data. Picked another pair of old 2tb WD disks from another source and they worked fine.

All of the disks that failed were stored in a steel drawer and none of the disks stored elsewhere failed. I know for certain that all of the disks that failed were working properly when I put them in the drawer some time ago. I had emptied them and reformatted them.

Never seen the effect before but it looks like storing HDDs in the steel drawer is a good way to kill them.

[jj2007]

storing HDDs in the steel drawer is a good way to kill them.

Sounds extremely unlikely - try to connect these drives with other means.

[hutch--]

I have saved a couple of them, a 1 and a 2tb with diskpart. One WD blue came back OK but the other would be seen by diskpart but failed on being formatted. Another WD 1tb Green would not even show in the diskpart list.

I don't have much use for 1tb disks any longer but having 3 x 2tb WD Green disks is useful for moving data between machines as its much faster than the 1 gig ethernet.

Its likely to be something like the steel draw effected the disks due to being magnetic, no good way to test it.

For disks to use in machines, lately I have been buying 8tb Seagate disks and they perform well and run stone cold.

[daydreamer]

Heat also can kill hd and steel transfer heat much worse than wood drawer

[K_F]

Never seen the effect before but it looks like storing HDDs in the steel drawer is a good way to kill them.

Wierd , you'd think the drawer would act as a faraday cage against any magnetic interference.

Maybe a 'random' electronic failure on the dead one ?