Fixing my external drive

MiracleDinner

MiracleDinner

Power Star
Pronouns
She/her
MarioWiki
MiracleDinner
Background info: I own two PCs, one which is very old and slow but has a large internal HDD (1TB), and a second which is new and fast but has a small internal SSD (128GB). I already owned a 16GB flash drive and about two weeks ago I bought a 1TB external USB SSD so I could store lots of things (mainly video games but also other things) whilst using my newer and much faster PC rather than having to deal with my old slow PC. It was from ebay and the seller dissappeared now so I'm doubtful I could get money back.

  • The 1TB external SSD arrived formatted as exFAT, I was used to NTFS so I Quick Formatted to NTFS then I read from somewhere exFAT was better so I switched back.
  • I used it and it felt pretty normal at one point, I copied an SMG2 iso from my old PC onto the external SSD Drive and that worked on Dolphin fine.
  • The problem started when I mass copied all of the Wii isos I had onto my old PC onto the external SSD drive then tried loading them in Dolphin. Out of the 9 I copied, only 2 worked, the other 7 were corrupted. And this kept happening
  • I eventually managed somehow to copy SPM (as far as I remember I did nothing different) over without corruption but then it started corrupting every time I tried copying a Wii iso onto the external SSD
  • I also noticed that often when I tried copying files of various kinds to the external SSD from either PC or even copying files from one folder on the SSD to another, it would corrrupt (e.g. with a word doc, word would say it was corrupted and the recover option didn't work), but unlike the Wii isos, this wasn't something that happened consistently.
  • Also some directories got outright corruption that would be reported when I tried to open or delete them, which CHKDSK /F D: fixed successfully.
  • I tried to fix this, mainly CHKDSK /F D: on an admin command prompt, but nothing would fix it. (with the corrupted files problem)
  • I then read that NTFS is more reliable on Windows than exFAT so I backed up all of the contents onto my old slow PC (afaik none of the files that were fine on my external SSD got corrupted on the backups to the old PC) and then did a full format (since I believe that checks for bad sectors) and I left it to work for about 36 hours but it eventually said it couldn't complete the format. It then said the external SSD couldn't be used without a format so I did a Quick Format to NTFS and this worked successfully.
  • At first it seemed to work fine and I've been able to copy a few Wii isos to the external SSD without them being corrupted, however, when I tried to restore the backed up data from my old PC to my external SSD I noticed something still wasn't fixed: when copying large batches of files it would be very slow and would often drop to zero basically forever so I got the idea to use my 16GB flash drive as a shuttle - copy from my old PC to the flash drive then copy from the flash drive to the external SSD using my new PC, this worked but many (not most) of the files got corrupted (thankfully all of the important ones weren't).
  • Since the 36 hour failed format then a Quick Format back to NTFS I can't use CHKDSK /F D:, it always throws the error 6e74667363686b2e 15e1, however just CHKDSK D: does work and reports no errors. I also tried using Seatools for windows but it always crashes when scanning for usb drives

TLDR: a new external USB SSD seems to have problems and I don't think I can get my money back but it would really suck if I spent the money for nothing, so I've tried a lot of things to fix it and I haven't fully succeeded. Am I unfixably screwed or not, if so was it my fault or not (if it was my fault what did I do wrong), and if not, what can I do to fix it?
 
Last edited:
How much did this USB cost? Because to me it sounds likely to be a fake flash device, a flash device that tells the OS it's bigger then it actually is. Unless you had files on there that you had nowhere else, then you should be fine. Considering the eBay seller just disappeared, I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to scam you with this.

I'm not an expert on the subject, so I will just leave a youtube video that says everything I would say, but better.

 
I'm gonna be upfront with you: if it keeps corrupting your data, it's not worth trying to fix it. It's definitely not your fault, because even if it was real things will sometimes just fail out of the box (though i agree with SGoW, you were likely the victim of a scam), but the only advice I can give it to not risk your data by using this device anymore.
 
Umm yeah £20 for a terabyte of SSD was a bit sus not gonna lie (having done a bit more digging now the price for a real SSD of that volume would easily be over £100) but I didn't know that this scam was a thing, I thought I just got lucky
Also looking at it now, the fact that neither the box nor the drive itself had any company labels is sus as well
It sucks I paid £20 for a scam drive but at least it's not 100% unusable, and I know better for next time

Thanks a lot SGoW
 
Last edited:
Not even HDDs go in that price range for a terrabyte; to put into perspective, I paid 60 dollars for a 2TB HDD. Affordable, large space SSDs aren't quite there yet so if space is your concern, you should stick with HDD as they are still the budget option for space.
 
Yeah, you ordered from eBay AND the seller disappeared? That's pretty obvious it's a scam. But doesn't ebay have anti fraud policies? Anyway, try to check for refunds available and such. In the meantime, you probably need to order off more trusted sites, including even more official company websites even. Reviews aren't always helpful since scammers can just fake them. You have to be especially careful getting stuff from eBay, even moreso than Amazon.
 
Striker Mario said:
Anyway, try to check for refunds available and such.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately probably not happening because they disappeared, and I did get the item and I don't think I can really solidly prove it was a scam and not my fault, especially as I've been using it and been doing technical changes to it etc.
 
Still try looking up online. Search something like "Ebay seller disappears after purchase". And try to figure out what you can do and can't do. There's probably a record of the transaction and ebay has a guarantee refund policy, but there's a period of a certain amount of days you can do this. You started noticing problems not too many days after purchase did you?
 
Striker Mario said:
Still try looking up online. Search something like "Ebay seller disappears after purchase". And try to figure out what you can do and can't do. There's probably a record of the transaction and ebay has a guarantee refund policy, but there's a period of a certain amount of days you can do this. You started noticing problems not too many days after purchase did you?
Click to expand...
It was probably about 4 days when I first noticed something was wrong, and it's been nearly two weeks since it arrived, I've seen a thing on ebay that may just about get me my money back but actually I've got a major exam tomorrow morning (it's 20:30 in england right now and my exam is 09:00 - 12:45) but I guess I can give it a go, I'm just slightly worried about if ebay rules against me if they decide I haven't proven to them I received a fraud and then I get a punishment
 
I don't think eBay will punish you if they find no evidence of fraud happening. Just don't worry, the worst will happen is that they can't find evidence of your claims and don't refund you (or the time between buying, receiving, and using has been exceeded; I believe the time period is roughly a few months at least, not two weeks, 180 days??? not sure but two weeks is certainly less than that). You should just try to contact customer support regardless, they had to deal with people making a lot of claims like this every day and I'm sure you're just another customer who bought something that was unsatisfactory and had issues getting refunded.

Just review their refund policy good especially their guaranteed refund one, and just look around to see similar cases of people believing they have been a victim of fraud. You'll probably find what you need to do, and if there is a punishment (which I highly doubt they will have beyond not granting you a refund) it'll be clearly outlined in their policy and FAQ and such.

For instance try looking here

eBay Money Back Guarantee policy

eBay Money Back Guarantee covers most transactions on eBay. It means buyers can get their money back if an item didn't arrive, is faulty or damaged, or doesn't match the listing.
www.ebay.com www.ebay.com

And just figure out if you qualify (item doesn't seem to be in the list of exclusions, and you could describe the item as "broken, damaged or faulty" particularly "faulty"). There's some reading to be done but I just hope that's something you can learn what to do if some other jerk wants to scam you again.
 
Last edited:
If you can't get through to Ebay you can get through to PayPal or your bank. Often these companies will repay you no questions asked because it's too much effort to research.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back