Windows 10 USB problem

[John9210]

I have an external usb connected solid state drive that I use for backing up my computer hard drive. However, when ever I insert a usb stick I get the error message "There is a problem with the external drive. click here to fix it". At first I dutifully checked the drive for errors the first couple of times and there was nothing wrong. But I keep getting the message. How can I stop this?

 

[rjlocal22]

Have you tried another usb? If you did and it worked, then the old usb may have been corrupted by static electricity. This can happen by removing the usb if you do not use the eject button.

 

[John9210]

I haven't been using the eject button. Can I reformat the USB stick?

 

[Neemobeer]

How are you removing the device after use? Are you just removing it or using the eject button?

 

[John9210]

Usually I just remove it.

 

[Neemobeer]

You really should use the eject button. If you write data to the drive Windows does what is called lazy writing which means even after the copy dialog closes it may not have finished writing. Also Windows can have open handles for indexing and other operations. Eject notifies the system to stop accessing the device and clean up any handles. Pulling the device can corrupt data and the file system meta data resulting in the error messages.

 

[John9210]

Ok, I'll make sure to do that in the future. However, I've re-formatted a USB drive (full format, Fat 32) and I still get the error when I insert it into the USB port. I also checked for errors, but the problem persists. Can my problem have something to do with the fact that my external solid state drive is also connected to a USB port and is always connected?

 

[Neemobeer]

No the error should tell you which drive has the errors. There could be problems with the storage on the flash drive though.

 

[Pictogrram]

I'm having the same issue with my external drive. What I do when I get this: move the information to other flash drive and then launch the formatting of the erroneous hard drive. And make sure you make the 'Safe ejection' of the flash drive.