Can't boot from Toshiba Canvio Basics external USB HDD

I installed Ubuntu 21.10 on a USB HDD (Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB)

I have also reinstalled grub in the ESP of the external drive with the following command to get a portable install of grub

grub-install --target=x86_64 --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader=Ubuntu --removable

However the machine does not boot the OS on the external drive (afer selecting to boot from USB HDD). On one machine, a brief Reset system is displayed; on another, nothing can be seen before the reboot.

The disk is fine but during the fail boot, it emits a clank noise... quite scary.

This kind of installation works fine when using another USB HDD (another brand)

So what is wrong with the Toshiba Canvio Basics USB HDD ? Is it Ubuntu ?