Laptop freezing when being turned on with my external HDD connected

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

Lately, my MSI Katana 15 B12VGK freezes when turning it on with my external HDD connected (it has a black screen and when I disconnect the drive, it procedes). Odd.

TechnoMage2021 · Aug 19, 2024

Sounds perfectly normal to me. Your laptop is trying to find the Boot Sector on the external drive. Only connect it AFTER Windows had completely booted up.

Cheers Mate,
TM

Anibor_11 · Aug 19, 2024

Never happens to me, I keep an external disk permanently connected. In the UEFI setup boot sequence, check that the first entry is Windows Boot Manager.

Berton · Aug 19, 2024

I've not had the problem with USB drives attached but it they had ever been used in a computer I make sure to wipe them clean so there's no pointers to any boot process they may have previously had on them.

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

TechnoMage2021 said:
Sounds perfectly normal to me. Your laptop is trying to find the Boot Sector on the external drive. Only connect it AFTER Windows had completely booted up.

Cheers Mate,
TM

Then why wasn't this happening before? It doesn't have a boot sector.

Anibor_11 said:
Never happens to me, I keep an external disk permanently connected. In the UEFI setup boot sequence, check that the first entry is Windows Boot Manager.

It's not but it was working this way, previously.

Berton said:
I've not had the problem with USB drives attached but it they had ever been used in a computer I make sure to wipe them clean so there's no pointers to any boot process they may have previously had on them.

Even if the USB drives don't any boot sector (like my external HDD)?

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

Anibor_11 said:
Never happens to me, I keep an external disk permanently connected. In the UEFI setup boot sequence, check that the first entry is Windows Boot Manager.

I set it as that and I still have this problem.

Spunk · Aug 19, 2024

That would indicate that the External USB HDD is starting to fail.
If you can start the computer and get the drive recognized, download Crystal Disk Info from my signature.
If it says the drive is anything less then Good, it needs to be replaced.

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

I tried the external HDD on another USB port and I didn't have this issue and tried other USB drives on the USB port where I'm having problems with the external HDD and I didn't too.

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

Spunk said:
That would indicate that the External USB HDD is starting to fail.
If you can start the computer and get the drive recognized, download Crystal Disk Info from my signature.
If it says the drive is anything less then Good, it needs to be replaced.

Read what I posted meanwhile.

Spunk · Aug 19, 2024

Did you try Crystal Disk Info or DiskGenius to view the SMART Info?

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

Spunk said:
Did you try Crystal Disk Info or DiskGenius to view the SMART Info?

I just tried Crystal Disk Info. It says it's good but now I'm worried about the internal SSD which says it's good 89% when I bought this laptop in April, 2023. Also, why doesn't it show a percentage for the external HDD unlike with the internal HDD and does "good" mean it won't have issues in the short-them?

Spunk · Aug 19, 2024

Percentage is used for SSD drives only, not HDD's. This is a list of the SMART data for your drive
89% means that 11% of the SSD write area has been exhausted. As you may or may not know that SSD's have a limited amount of writes to the drive.
Depending how old this drive is and how much you are writing to the disk, it has a LOT of life left in it. Just keep an eye on it. Probably several years.

As for your external, you now know that that USB port has an issue with the drive and to not use it with this drive.

Windows 11 User · Aug 19, 2024

Spunk said:
Percentage is used for SSD drives only, not HDD's. This is a list of the SMART data for your drive
89% means that 11% of the SSD write area has been exhausted. As you may or may not know that SSD's have a limited amount of writes to the drive.
Depending how old this drive is and how much you are writing to the disk, it has a LOT of life left in it. Just keep an eye on it. Probably several years.

As for your external, you now know that that USB port has an issue with the drive and to not use it with this drive.

The SSD came with the laptop.

Then why doesn't it have with other USB drives?

Spunk · Aug 20, 2024

The SSD drive is not a USB drive. Only the internal OS SSD drive will have a percentage

Windows 11 User · Aug 21, 2024

Spunk said:
The SSD drive is not a USB drive. Only the internal OS SSD drive will have a percentage

And what about this percentage? Is it bad?

Windows 11 User · Aug 21, 2024

I just tried the external HDD with another USB cable and I still have this issue. Also, this problems happens when turning on the PC, not when restarting it.

andrew129260 · Aug 21, 2024

Sometimes when windows tries accessing a disk and the disk does not respond, or lags on responding, it can cause weird things to happen such as freezing. It isn't super common, but typically its only explorer freezing and not the entire system. Some drivers/antivirus can also cause conflicts.

You can try connecting the drive to another machine and formatting it. And then using disk check on it to check for bad sectors if its a hard disk external. If it is an ssd, then perhaps some of the memory cells are failing. Look at the smart health with something like crystal disk info.

Some manufacturers also have a tool to check health of the drive. Look up the external drive support info to see if they have a health tool.

Windows 11 User · Aug 21, 2024

andrew129260 said:
Sometimes when windows tries accessing a disk and the disk does not respond, or lags on responding, it can cause weird things to happen such as freezing. It isn't super common, but typically its only explorer freezing and not the entire system. Some drivers/antivirus can also cause conflicts.

You can try connecting the drive to another machine and formatting it. And then using disk check on it to check for bad sectors if its a hard disk external. If it is an ssd, then perhaps some of the memory cells are failing. Look at the smart health with something like crystal disk info.

Some manufacturers also have a tool to check health of the drive. Look up the external drive support info to see if they have a health tool.

I already formatted it and Crystal Disk Info says it's good.

andrew129260 · Aug 21, 2024

Windows 11 User said:
I already formatted it and Crystal Disk Info says it's good.

has disk check found any errors? Does connecting it to another machine cause it to freeze in the same way?

Do you have an updated bios?

Since this is only happening when you start the computer, I just wouldn't bother having it plugged in then to avoid the issue.

Windows 11 User · Aug 21, 2024

andrew129260 said:
has disk check found any errors? Does connecting it to another machine cause it to freeze in the same way?

Do you have an updated bios?

Since this is only happening when you start the computer, I just wouldn't bother having it plugged in then to avoid the issue.

No, but I didn't check if it had bad sectors. Don't know, I've yet to try it.

Yes, I do.

That's what I decided, though I sometimes forget it.