Windows 10 is removing files that were recently accessed or made on an external drive.
Windows 10 is removing files that were recently accessed or made on an external drive.
You might be disconnecting the drives before Windows signals it to remove them, which could stop the write process from finishing. Setting the drive not to cache data might help, though it would slow down writes.
It might be possible. From Windows 7 I’ve gotten used to connecting and disconnecting drives without problems as long as they weren’t writing data. I observed Windows 10 doesn’t allow me to safely eject drives on either machine. No matter what software is running or what I close, they all claim they’re active, so I began shutting down from the start menu and removing the drives once everything is off, which seems to resolve the issue, though occasionally files vanish unexpectedly.
It seems Windows turns off write caching on external drives by default, especially in Windows 10. Checking the SMART data via Crystal Disk Info might be useful if you suspect the drive is failing.
It's unlikely to be this old. Issues like this occur even with recent devices. I used 7 for a month before it stopped working, then switched to 10 and it failed again. Checking Device Manager shows quick removal is off. I'm planning to run a tool to check if it's about to disappear.
Check the drive's condition using a tool like runcrystaldiskinfo. If it can't be removed, it suggests a program is still accessing the data, which might explain why files vanish when you disconnect it. Transfer all your information off the disk, reset and rebuild the partition in Windows Disk Management ensuring it's fully formatted, then restore your data. This should enable safe ejection.
Well, it seems like a warning is in place. A screenshot is attached. There are 98 uncorrectable sectors that might signal an upcoming drive failure according to the source. Additional information comes from the other two computers, along with photos and images from phones and cameras—more than my PC could manage if the drives were empty. It still feels strange that Windows 7 didn’t encounter problems during that period. Could the drive have had issues since it was new?
Hmm... I thought that writes took the same amount of time with write caching off, or might even be faster (because it's going straight to disk afaik, not first to cache then when it feels like it, to disk). I don't call a write "done" until it's ACTUALLY written to disk . As I see it, turning on write caching means Windows is lying to me about when it's done. I don't want the progress dialog to disappear / get to 100% until it's actually written. I run Windows 10, and sometimes unplug drives the moment the progress dialog hits 100% and disappears. I have write caching turned off last I checked.