I had this problem recently. When I connected my external HDD to my desktop a while ago, it would always disconnect and reconnect and it has a 30secs to 1min interval before it does it again making file transfer impossible, I thought my external HDD was the problem that's why I tried to connect it to my laptop and it worked perfectly fine! I even manage to watch a 2hr movie without interruption unlike with my my desktop where the problem continues. It's USB powered hard drive by the way. And there's probably nothing wrong with the USB cable also since it functions it never had problems when I tried this with my laptop(plugged it the whole day and the problem never showed up even once)
So I'm guessing maybe my USB ports are already dying since they can't support my external HDD anymore like they used. They still manage to support my USB thumb drives however and the problem never occurs when I connect those, but maybe because they use less power than my external HDD does. So, does anyone have more ideas regarding this problem or am I correct with my assumption? Replies would be greatly appreciated.
So I'm guessing maybe my USB ports are already dying since they can't support my external HDD anymore like they used. They still manage to support my USB thumb drives however and the problem never occurs when I connect those, but maybe because they use less power than my external HDD does. So, does anyone have more ideas regarding this problem or am I correct with my assumption? Replies would be greatly appreciated.