Windows 10: It says I don't have access to my external disk drive, I checked the permissions and I have...

I travelled with my external disk drive some days ago and now that I plug it in, it says "E:\ is not accessible, access refused", I tried changing the letter for it and it changed nothing, I checked for viruses and got everything removed but still nothing, anything I could do or should I just format my disk?

:)

 

External Hard Drive "is not accessible"

Hi Ridhwan,

Sorry for the delayed response. Let me continue to assist you further.

The issue here could have been due to fact that the Drive I:\ is encrypted or a flush drive. This forces the computer to not recognize the format and displays the error message. I suggest here to follow the steps below and check if it helps.

• Press Windows Key + letter 'X.'
• Choose 'Disk Management.'
• Right click on the External drive and select 'Change Drive letter and Path names.'
• Rename the drive letter i.e. remove letter I and say you replace it with letter
  J.
• Restart the computer and check the issue status.

Hope this helps. Please reply for further queries on this.

 

Checking Disk Consistency

Ok i did as viper suggested, but it stops checking at stage 3. It is still saying the drive is dirty, and still needs to be checked. I did a defrag and a disk cleanup, and suggestions?

 

Can't Access any external drive - Access Denied

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



In order to get clarity and to assist you accordingly, we would need some information.

1. What is the version and
   build
   of you operating system? In the Search box, type
   winver to get this info.
   
2. What is the Make and the model of the Computer and the External drive?
   
3. May I know if you have tried with any other external driver and facing the similar issue?
   

I suggest you to try the following methods and check:



Follow the instructions to assign full permissions to the drive and check if you are able to access external drive.



1. Right-click on the External drive and select "Properties"

2. Select the Security tab.

3. Click on "Edit"

4. Select "Add"

5. In the box type "Everyone" and select "OK"

6. Select the "Everyone" user from the list, check the "Full Control" option
below and click on "Apply" and "OK"



I would also suggest you to refer to suggestions from

Frederik Long replied on December 29, 2017 and check if fixes the issue.



Thanks,

Suman.B

Microsoft Community - Moderator