Since December I’ve had a few of these with Harddisk1/ 2/3. Last night this error was logged four times in a row, one right after the other. If memory serves, it was around when I ejected the Easystore from my computer, if not a few seconds earlier when I was trying to eject and Windows kept saying it was busy (I’ve always had that problem).
I cannot say for certain if circumstances were the same for earlier errors, but I’ve had one in December (Harddisk2), two in February (Harddisk 1 and 3 respectively), and one in March (Harddisk 1).
These are all Easystores with the exception of one Elements drive.
I’ve put the drives in question through several tests, and they all check out. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with them, and I haven’t had any issues using them either. S.M.A.R.T. data checks out for everything. They all range between two and three years old, but the actual power on time for most of them is barely a few weeks. They’re used for periodic backups.
I’ve already checked my computer, cables, cleaned out dust, etc. Pretty much everything that’s usually suggested, I’ve already checked and double-checked. Everything within reason: I’m not about to replace my motherboard or entire chunks of hardware in the absence of greater problems.
The Device Manager says there are no compatible drivers for the “WD SES Device USB Device”. But it’s been that way since I first started using these drives.
I find it unlikely that there’s something wrong with all of these drives at the same time, and given that I’ve found a few threads in other places where WD externals are specifically mentioned in conjunction with this error, I’d say if there’s any commonality here at all, it’s that or Microsoft themselves. Googling Event ID 11 doesn’t yield much: there’s not a whole lot in general, and what is there is either a shrug, or assertions that the drive will probably need last rites, which again, seems unlikely in my case unless these drives are taking a really long time to die, and they’re all doing it in the exact same way, i.e. tip-top S.M.A.R.T. readings, no bad sectors, no read/write errors, the general absence of any other discernible problems, etc. IF these drives were actually dying, I’d think at least one of them would have had problems connecting, or given me a BSOD, or crashed Windows explorer, or whatever these things usually do when they’re giving up the ghost. At least ONE of them would have done something by now.
I’d contact WD and ask what they think, but I’d rather not as previous experience has shown me that unless the issue conforms to a checklist, their call center scripts don’t allow them much leeway in terms of actually solving the issue.
Note: After cross-referencing the times and dates I’ve just realized that all but one of these errors was related to either connecting a drive to my computer, or ejecting it. Odd. And the one that wasn’t related to a connection/removal was a Cruzer flash drive (which is still working fine, by the way).