I have an ADATA SH12 external hard drive. It stopped working properly yesterday. I use it mainly for videos and now when I try to play a video on my computer, it will play the first min. or so, then windows media player will stop playing the video and become unresponsive. I also tried to play videos with other media players and the same thing occurs. I know I can just move the video to my computer and watch it from there, but I would like to just be able to watch it from my external. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

parli014,
I suggest it is a problem with the external harddrive's enclosure.
More specifically, a small circuit board, that the hard drive plugs into.

Primer:

The basic construction of the ADATA SH12 external hard drive is;

1) The thin rectangular external enclosure, (Case), of the external hard drive.

2) A SATA 500GB or 1000GB (1TB) hard drive

3) A small circuit board with an interface, that the hard drive plugs into.
May be a rectangular block of material that the hard drive plugs straight into,

Or,

May be a plug that plugs into the hard drive. Plug attached to cable, and other end of cable goes to the small circuit board.

The USB cable on the outside of the case, also goes into the small circuit board.

Primer over.

I suggest the small circuit board is the problem.

Could I be wrong?

Sure

Could I be right?
This would require you removing the hard drive out of the ADATA's external enclosure, and installing it in another new external enclosure.

I know that;

1) Due to the age of this external hard drive, the hard drive inside is a SATA unit.

2) Due to the dimensions of the ADATA SH12, I know the hard drive is a 2.5 inch laptop sized hard drive.

(Harddrive's are measured across their Width.
2.5 = 2-1/2 Inches. Laptop size.
3.5 is for a Desktop computer )

Newegg.com - Vantec NexStar CX 2.5" SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive/SSD Enclosure (Supports 7mm, 9.5mm, 12.5mm HDD/SSD) - Model NST-200S2-BK (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392019)

Sabrent EC-UST25 Hard Drive Enclosure - 2.5 SATA to USB 2.0 at TigerDirect.com (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3195233&Sku=M501-1031)

For about $15 you can see if this is the problem. (Postage, tax)

How to open an ADATA external harddrive's enclosure, (Laptop sized harddrive)
About the same as this Toshiba,

how to open a toshiba portable hard drive (without case damage) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YYCrFwMrEU)

Regards,
joecoolvette