Windows 10: As of a couple of days ago, File Explorer stops responding when I insert my thumb drive....

As of a couple of days ago, File Explorer stops responding; then nothing else works and I end up having a black screen with no toolbar or anything else. I have to manually push the power button to get out of the problem. I've seen some other questions like this, but none that I found applied to Windows 11.I would love to include a screen shot, but I can do nothing once I've put my thumb drive into my laptop. Can someone please help me?

:)

 

HP Laptop - Windows 10 - File Explorer and Thumb Drive Corrupted ("Not Responding" Error Messages)

Friends,

I have a one-year old HP laptop running Windows 10 and a fairly new Phiilips 15 GB thumb drive.

The thumb drive appears to be corrupted. When I attempt to access the thumb drive on my laptop or a public computer the File Explorer feature freezes gives me the “Not Responding” error message.



- - When using my laptop the thumb drive completely freezes and I am unable access any files on this drive

- - When using a public computer I can access the files on the thumb drive, however, I receive the “Not Responding” error message for 20-30 seconds each time I access a file on the thumb drive



Both of the use cases above lead to very poor performance and personal productivity - "Not Responding" error message 20-30 times per day.

I have scanned both my laptop and thumb drive with McAfee AV software which reports "no"(zero) problems found.

I have scanned the thumb drive on a public computer using MalwareBytes AV which also reports "no" (zero) problems found.

Please help. Many, many thanks. Lawrence

 

downloading pictures to thumb drive

Hi Karen

Insert the USB Thumb drive into your PC

Open Windows File Explorer, create a folder on your Thumb Drive and open that folder

Open the Photos App, and resize the app so you can also see that folder in File Explorer

Select photos in the Photos App, so they are ticked, then just drag those to the folder Window and they will be copied onto the flash drive

Alternatively

Open Windows File Explorer, navigate to your Pictures folder on your Hard drive, select some photos, right click and choose 'Send to' - your flash drive will be bottom of the send to list . . .

 

File Explorer frequently stops responding

Consistently, when i access certain files, usually ones a couple folders in, my file explorer will stop responding and do nothing until restarted.

I have read a lot of readily available help, suggesting things like "sfc/scannow" in cmd or a system health check in powershell, or clearing file explorer history in control panel. Nothing so far has worked.

If i remember, I've had this problem before reseting my PC before (though i kept my External HDD files).

This is becoming more of an issue so a fix would be amazing.