Unable to copy files/format External HDs

LokeshGur

Member
Hello Everyone!
Recently from past 1 month I've been facing a problem after my Win10 update i.e I'm unable to copy or move any file from my Laptop to any of my External HDs. I am also unable to format those External HDs. I've tried everything; copy paste, drag & drop etc. I've even tried updating my USB Drives but till same issue. However, whenever I try any of the above things, a message pops in saying- "You Need Permission To Perform This Action." Even though I'm the admin.
Please help me out! :)
 
Additionally, you might consider removing those usb drives from your computer temporarily and checking them on a friend's computer or one at your school or work (make sure there is nothing bad on there first, like viruses!). If you can drag & drop files between that other computer and your drives; it's probably something that happened to your W10 and you may need to backup your info to a 2nd computer, reformat those drives as required (especially if any of them are over 2TB in size; use GPT), and then copy back the info to them and try again on your computer. If it still doesn't work, it's quite likely 1 or more of those external drives has failed. FYI, external usb drives often fail after 4-5 years.:eek: If any you are trying to use, they should be tested using the manufacturer's free diagnostic utilities such as Seatools or DLG; if errors are returned those drives have failed and need to be replaced.:waah:

The other thing that techs do, is follow the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid); if you have like 8 usb drives all connected at once, any one of those could cause your windows to be scrambled, and so it's best to unplug them all, and troubleshoot using one drive at a time. If that one is good, move on to the next, if that's good, move on to the 3rd drive and so forth. Make sure not to leave any other drives in so that as you go you wind up with multiple drives plugged into your PC at the same time. ONLY TEST 1 AT A TIME; then once you've made sure all 8 work individually you should be able to plug them in one at a time to your PC and get a good result. After plugging in say 5 drives, and the 6th drive causes the original problem; that drive could have failed and caused your problem :headache:; you need to remove all drives and test that one; if bad, replace it as per above. :wave:

Hope that helps!:D
<<BIGBEARJEDI>>
 
Additionally, you might consider removing those usb drives from your computer temporarily and checking them on a friend's computer or one at your school or work (make sure there is nothing bad on there first, like viruses!). If you can drag & drop files between that other computer and your drives; it's probably something that happened to your W10 and you may need to backup your info to a 2nd computer, reformat those drives as required (especially if any of them are over 2TB in size; use GPT), and then copy back the info to them and try again on your computer. If it still doesn't work, it's quite likely 1 or more of those external drives has failed. FYI, external usb drives often fail after 4-5 years.:eek: If any you are trying to use, they should be tested using the manufacturer's free diagnostic utilities such as Seatools or DLG; if errors are returned those drives have failed and need to be replaced.:waah:

The other thing that techs do, is follow the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid); if you have like 8 usb drives all connected at once, any one of those could cause your windows to be scrambled, and so it's best to unplug them all, and troubleshoot using one drive at a time. If that one is good, move on to the next, if that's good, move on to the 3rd drive and so forth. Make sure not to leave any other drives in so that as you go you wind up with multiple drives plugged into your PC at the same time. ONLY TEST 1 AT A TIME; then once you've made sure all 8 work individually you should be able to plug them in one at a time to your PC and get a good result. After plugging in say 5 drives, and the 6th drive causes the original problem; that drive could have failed and caused your problem :headache:; you need to remove all drives and test that one; if bad, replace it as per above. :wave:

Hope that helps!:D
<<BIGBEARJEDI>>
Thanks! Though I got confused. I'm able to copy & move my stuff on my Win7 Desktop but I'm unable to do it on my Win10 Laptop. So according to you I should format all my drives in order to make my USB work properly?
 
You're welcome. :) That's quite an oversimplification; but you need to CHECK them each first, and when plugging them into your W10 laptop, you need to CHECK each one again. You also didn't tell us the size of any or even all of these drives. Are any 3TB or larger? (2nd time I'm asking this). The reason I'm asking which is what Neemo is referring to, that drives that size need the GPT disk format in order for the entire volume to be seen as a single drive letter (E:, F:, G:, H:, etc.) by File Explorer in W10 (the File Manager program). And it's important to me that you didn't mention backing up all the data to other drives first PRIOR to formatting anything!! This certainly could lead to IRRETRIEVABLE DATA LOSS OTHERWISE!!

<<BBJ>> :encouragement:
 
You can check in disk management, if the hard drives are read only. If they are, enter disk part and change them to read write. I don't remember the exact commands anymore, but a simple search with "how to use disk part to Read Write HDD" should help you easily.
 
And it's important to me that you didn't mention backing up all the data to other drives first PRIOR to formatting anything!! This certainly could lead to IRRETRIEVABLE DATA LOSS OTHERWISE!!

<<BBJ>> :encouragement:

And btw. this is wrong. It is advisable that you backup everything, before formatting, yes, that's true. But on the other hand, if the only thing you do is re-formatting the drive then pretty much all of the data is recoverable easily.
 
You can check in disk management, if the hard drives are read only. If they are, enter disk part and change them to read write. I don't remember the exact commands anymore, but a simple search with "how to use disk part to Read Write HDD" should help you easily.
I've tried everything but still I'm unable to copy any of my data to my external drives. It still says "You need permission to perform this action" I'm the sole admin but still I'm unable to do so! Any other way round?
 
You're welcome. :) That's quite an oversimplification; but you need to CHECK them each first, and when plugging them into your W10 laptop, you need to CHECK each one again. You also didn't tell us the size of any or even all of these drives. Are any 3TB or larger? (2nd time I'm asking this). The reason I'm asking which is what Neemo is referring to, that drives that size need the GPT disk format in order for the entire volume to be seen as a single drive letter (E:, F:, G:, H:, etc.) by File Explorer in W10 (the File Manager program). And it's important to me that you didn't mention backing up all the data to other drives first PRIOR to formatting anything!! This certainly could lead to IRRETRIEVABLE DATA LOSS OTHERWISE!!

<<BBJ>> :encouragement:
I've tried everything but still I'm unable to copy any of my data to my external drives. It still says "You need permission to perform this action" I'm the sole admin but still I'm unable to do so! Any other way round?
 
@Akito: Sorry bro', I'll have to disagree with you there; as I've had many many drives lose data after making ANY changes to a faulty hard drive with diskpart or any other utility that touches the HDD.

BBJ
 
@Akito: Sorry bro', I'll have to disagree with you there; as I've had many many drives lose data after making ANY changes to a faulty hard drive with diskpart or any other utility that touches the HDD.

BBJ
I guess I'd have to try it up again then. Win10 is quite complexed though! :/
 
Well I'd say it's a good idea to make a back-up if you're formatting a drive. The first being then you don't have to do the recovery which can take longer than running a recovery. The second is if you do a 'long format' Windows will do 1 pass of righting zeros to the disk which could make some of the data non-recoverable. In my opinion you should only recover if data was accidentally deleted.
 
Ø Right click on “This Pc” or “My Computer”, select “Manage” option.

Ø Under Manage you will find “Storage”, select “Disk Management”.

Ø Under the disk management, you will find drive number (disk 0 or disk 1), and also you will find read option.

Ø Open Run-Cmd-type diskpart and hit enter.

Ø Enter “List Disk”, then you will find list of disk available.
Ø For selecting the disk, type “select disk 0 or 1”

Ø It will appear disk is selected.

Ø Then type the following command “attribute disk clear readonly”.
 
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