wiseleo

Windows stepping down the speed is the symptom.

Drive health, controller health, or controller driver is the root cause of the problem. :)

Fix the root cause and that should solve the problem. Do nothing without a complete backup. :)

Reformatting won't make a difference. You can reformat a drive a million times without any ill effects, except for normal wear and tear of operating a drive for that period of time.

The heads inside the drive do not touch the data surfaces.