All Questions
106
questions
22
votes
5
answers
122k
views
Windows 10: No option to Eject External HARD DRIVE (NOT USB Stick)
When I plug in my external hard drive (again, NOT USB stick), and right click on the icon in This PC, there is no option to eject the drive.
There is a system tray option to "safely eject" it, but ...
- 376
9
votes
4
answers
14k
views
Eject/dismount a drive using PowerShell
I would like to eject/dismount an external USB drive via PowerShell.
Meaning, I want to replicate exactly the behaviour of these UI actions (Ejecting drive via Windows UI):
Currently I am using this ...
- 91
6
votes
4
answers
23k
views
Basic data partition vs. primary partition
What is the difference between primary partition and basic data partition?
I formatted two spare drives I have and am confused that the lower one says "basic data partition". How do I format ...
- 163
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Why is my newly formatted (NTFS) 4 TB external hard drive has a Total Reserved Clusters of 4.7 GB?
I just bought a new external HDD (WD My Book 4 TB, it's my 3rd of the 4 TB variant).
As per usual, I formatted it using NTFS with 4KB cluster size because I'm using Windows 10, but then when I checked ...
- 51
4
votes
4
answers
17k
views
Windows 10 fails to assign drive letter to external USB hard disk drive on plugin
I have a correctly formatted (Master Boot Record, FAT32) 500 GB SATA 2.5 inch drive in an external hard drive enclosure, connected by USB chord.
This drive automatically mounts flawlessly to my ...
4
votes
1
answer
7k
views
USB 3.0 randomly disconnecting and reconnecting, not power config
So I have a Surface Pro 3 running Windows 10, and an external USB 3 HDD. If I plug in the HDD, a process will begin. First the drive will appear with the drive letter only, and be unreadable, but in ...
- 143
3
votes
2
answers
4k
views
How to check if external hard drive is spinning or in sleep mode through the command line?
How can I determine through the command line whether or not an external drive that is connected to my system is awake (spinning) or sleeping?
None of the answers here have helped. The Powershell ...
- 217
3
votes
3
answers
886
views
Drives reading constantly, how do I see a disk's queue? (not the queue length)
Here's my problem. Since around two days ago, I noticed that my external HDD LED kept blinking, even though no programs were running. So I checked Task Manager and discovered that something is reading ...
- 33
3
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Deleting or copying file: File to big for destination file system
I've got a Windows 10 pc, with an internal (S:/) and external (I:/) hdd. Both are formatted to NTFS. I've made copies using bvckup 2 in the past.
Today I found a small error for copying new files to, ...
- 131
2
votes
1
answer
8k
views
Windows XP don't recognize external disk formatted in windows 10
I have an external 2TB disk which I formatted on Windows 10 laptop and made one big NTFS partition. But when I connect the disk to the Windows XP laptop (SP3), it doesn't see the NTFS partition. This ...
- 7,509
2
votes
2
answers
830
views
Best practices for formatting a new external hard drive in Windows 10: Quick Format with chkdsk pass, or Full Format?
This seems like a basic question, but I think the details I am hoping someone can tell me, are not basic-- and there is a lot of contradictory information out there on the topic.
I know the usual ...
- 51
2
votes
3
answers
19k
views
E:\ is not accessible. The request is not supported
Yesterday I installed Windows 10 Pro Anniversary Update (Version 1607 OS Build 14393.10) and my external disks no longer can be read.
When I attach them to the PC I get the following error message
...
- 437
2
votes
1
answer
834
views
Turned old SSD into USB external drive - But not working
I recently upgraded my PCs SSD storage from 500gb to a new 1tb disk. I've removed the 500gb and placed it within an external SSD enclosure.
When plugging it into the USB port it's not recognised as a ...
- 123
2
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How Do I Determine Why Hard Drives Won't Spin Down?
I run a dual boot setup with both Windows and macOS; under macOS I use two external USB drives in a mirrored RAID storing a lot of bulk data with redundancy, these are formatted as Apple RAID devices.
...
- 185
2
votes
1
answer
13k
views
External HDD not assigned drive letter on Windows
I have an external 5TB drive (Seagate Expansion Desk). It has 2 partitions (FAT32 & NTFS) with valuable files. I may have unplugged it before without doing it "safely" on Windows 10. It is now not ...
- 141