Slow external hard drive

[Daxx]

My Buffalo 1 TB USB external hard drive recently became very slow. Files and folders take ages to load and open, and the file transfers are also running ridiculously slow. The light on it is often flickering for no reason, like it's being accessed by something. The drive isn't even nearly full with only 15% used.

So far I have tried to defragment it, checking it for errors, reinstalling the drivers, testing it on another computer, connecting it with a new USB chord, simply rebooting the computer. None of those helped and the drive is still running as slow as a turtle with no legs.


The drive is maybe max 3 years old and the problems just came instantly out of nowhere. Can something be done or is it simply dying?


EDIT: I also noticed that when the drive is connected, the computer's recycle bin is loading extremely slow, but there seems to be nothing in it.

[Rapper]

I am not specialist, my father is, but he is too lazy to tell me, but i think you have to reinstall the Windows or the drivers. Also make a virus scan.

[Daxx]

I am not specialist, my father is, but he is too lazy to tell me, but i think you have to reinstall the Windows or the drivers. Also make a virus scan.

I forgot I already tried to reinstall the drivers, added it to the post now. Reinstalling Windows is pretty much not an option, but I'll try that virus scan.

Thanks.

[Gandalf]

Is your normal hard drive nearly full ?
Many times in order to speed up the process Windows uses a 'swap file' that acts like an extension of RAM.
If your disk is nearly full, that swap file becomes unavailable, slowing down file operations.

[Omar Aly]

Are you using any of it as extension ram? If not I bet it's a virus, so how you moved it to any other PC other than yours latly?

[Daxx]

Is your normal hard drive nearly full ?
Many times in order to speed up the process Windows uses a 'swap file' that acts like an extension of RAM.
If your disk is nearly full, that swap file becomes unavailable, slowing down file operations.

None of the internal hard drives are even nearly full and RAM pretty much never goes above 30% of use.

Are you using any of it as extension ram? If not I bet it's a virus, so how you moved it to any other PC other than yours latly?

Nah, it's not being used as an extension. I'm trying to do a virus scan on it, but it scans extremely slow. Scanning it completely would probably take a few days.

[Reece]

Do you actually need it to be external? IE - is it ever moved around, or is it always at the same PC?

[Daxx]

Do you actually need it to be external? IE - is it ever moved around, or is it always at the same PC?

Well, I don't often move it around but I'd rather keep it external.

The hard drive worked normally for like 30 seconds today but then went back to being slow. No idea what could be causing it.

[Omar Aly]

I bet it's virused

[Jonathan_Als.]

What kind of drive is it? What port are you using (USB, eSATA, etc.)?