Windows 10: Problem accessing files on external HD

Hi,

I recently bought a new PC with Windows 10 and I am having some issues with an external USB hard drive that I was wondering if I could get some feedback on. Here's the problem: when trying to access certain files on the drive (no rhyme or reason apparent - it just happens with the occasional file, but frequently enough to be a serious hindrance when backing up and restoring data), whatever part of Windows 10 that's trying to access the problem file will freeze up. If I try to copy the file, the copy dialog will do nothing and I will be unable to even abort the transfer. If I try to open the file, file explorer will stop responding. The weird part is that I can manipulate these files okay on my old Windows 7 machine. The files don't seem to be corrupted in any way (based on md5 hash), although copying or opening small problem files on the win7 machine can sometimes take a couple of minutes. Once they have been copied over, they behave normally. Does anybody know what's going on here? Is there a problem with my USB drive? This would not be good as I depend heavily on this drive for file backup.

Thanks,
Sam

Oh, one last thing - I have encountered "problem files" that have been copied to the drive by both the Windows 10 and Windows 7 machines, so it's not the case that one machine or the other is failing to copy to the drive correctly.

:)

 

cannot see external drive under my computer but can see it in the control panel

I have an external Hard disk that is formatted to mac with files I need.

when I plug in the HD it does not show under the my computer page. but it shows under device and printers in the control panel.

how can I access the files from my external HD.

this disk was mac formatted. but I need to access the file on windows as well

 

Problem accessing partition on External Drive

Hi Eric Ber,

Regarding the questions that I have received in my email address the answers are as fallows:

-Yes I have tried and the problem persists.

-I have already talk with the device brand support and they said there might be a problem with the device but they can not explain why in Win7 I was able to work around the problem and in Win10 I can not. The problem that they pointed up is that it is not
normal that I have to assignee letters to the drive every time my PC starts.

-Other external HDD work good, I don't have any problem with them.

I understand that may be a problem with the device also, but I need at least to be able to access the information like I was able to access it in Win7. Regarding the tests at the link you gave me in the replay to my post I will test them and get back to
you. I see there are some steps for Win7 should I skip those?

The thing is that the Win10 recognizes my external device, it even sees it as an external mass storage, even in Disk Management after I connect the device I am able to see the partitions found on the external device. The problem appears after I assignee
a letters to the partitions when I am not able to open the partition in Windows Explorer to see the files.

Thank you for you support.

Update: I have tested all the solutions in the link and none of them fixed the problem.

 

Welcome to the forum. First thing is to check the drive for errors is formated ntfs?

 

Yes, it's NTFS. What's the best way to check it for errors? It doesn't say there are errors with it when I plug it in if that's what you mean.

 

I believe Samuria wants you to do Error Checking with Check Disk.
With the drive plugged in, go to Start/Search and type CMD, Right click the CMD results and Run As Administrator. In the Elevated Command Prompt type the drive letter of the the external drive (ie) G: and press enter (eg) G:\> at this prompt type chkdsk /R and press enter. Now type the letter Y for Yes to Unmount the drive. Check Disk will go through 5 stages and will take a while.

 

Okay, Check Disk appears to be stuck 141 files into "Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data." What should I do now? Is it safe to close the command prompt window?

edit: Stuck as in it's been here for like an hour and a half and nothing has happened

 

Okay, after a few hours I gave up and closed the window. I'm going to assume Check Disk getting stuck is probably not a good sign for my drive's health.

 

Depending on the size of the drive, it may take many hours to finish "chkdsk /R".

I would consider getting another HDD.

 

Check Disk can run a long time, overnight. However, the more bad sectors you have the longer Check Disk will run.

 

Okay, maybe I'll try again overnight. If it had been moving at all I would have let it keep going, but it was stuck on Stage 4 file 141 for hours.

 

That is a bad sector in a bad cluster. Check Disk is trying to move the files on that sector to a good one nearby. If there are too many bad sectors, Check Disk will stall or fail and the drive should be replaced.

 

Ah, okay. Sounds like I'll have to get a new drive and hope I can salvage most of the data on this one. Thanks for the info.