Windows 10: External drive issue

All of the sudden one of my drives stopped allowing me to access it, the device shows in file explorer but when I try to access it states the drive is not accessible due to a fatal device hardware error. Is there a way to fix this?

:)

 

HELP!!! External Drive issues!!

you're in luck, the guy with way too much external storage is here to the rescue!


step 1: try with a different USB cable

step 2: take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it internally to your PC

quite likely the cable or enclosure has died. if you're re-initialising the disk you might actually be erasing it... so dont do that.

 

External drives and Windows 10 issue

Since you are having multiple issues with Windows 10, we suggest you to run a System File Checker (SFC) and Deployment Image Servicing (DISM) to look into the system for possible corruption. To do so, kindly follow the steps below:

• Press Windows key + X
• On the menu which should pop-up on the lower-left side of your screen, click
  Command Prompt (admin)
• Type the following on Command Prompt (wait for the SFC scan to finish before running DISM):
  
  sfc /scannow
  
  dism /online /restorehealth /cleanup-image
  
  

Check the result of the scans, and if it states that it was able to fix some corrupted files, simply restart your computer to apply the fix and check if the issue persists.

Regarding your external hard disk, we suggest you to update your USB Hard Disk drivers. To do so, follow the steps below:

• Press Windows key + X.
• Click Device Manager.
• Find the disk drive for your external hard disk.
• Right-click your disk drive.
• Click Update Driver Software.
• A new windows will prompt, click Search automatically for updated driver software.

Let us know how it goes.

 

External drive

Hi Richard,

There are several factors that can cause your external drive to not read DVDs even though the system is recognizing the device. This could be caused by a driver that needs to updated or corrupted files. For us to resolve your concern, kindly answer the questions
below:

• Just to confirm, the device that is not working properly is a external DVD optical drive?
• Were there any recent changes or updates installed on your computer?
• Have you tried to plug the external drive to a different port on your computer?

As a initial recommendation, we suggest that your run the built in troubleshooter in Windows 10. Kindly refer to the steps below:

• Type “Troubleshooting” in the Search bar and press Enter.
• Click on “View All” in the top left corner.
• This will display the list of troubleshooters which are built-in in the computer. You can click on
  Hardware and Devices from the list and you can run the troubleshooter.

This will check for common errors that affect hardware on your computer and attempts to correct them.

We look forward to your response after completing the steps.