Help with resolving a recent issue.

Hi, it’s been a while since I’ve been around, I hope everyone who uses this site is doing well.

I wanted to ask for some help with a recent issue I am having. I am not sure if this is in this section or should be in another section of this site.

I have a laptop that is running windows 7. I have recently purchased an external hard drive, san disk, 1TB, (shows up as 931 GB, but that’s a different issue altogether). I have it set to have automatically configured the drive after plugging it into my laptop. It is running on exfat. This is great as I had files I wanted to get off my laptop that were larger than 4 GB.

Well, it was going fine, until yesterday, my laptop suddenly turned off. I had it plugged in, & I close it when I’m not using it, plus I keep the brightness low as to avoid heat & anything of the sort. I found it odd, so I turned on my laptop. I checked the initial programs that boot up, & after they all booted up, I restarted the laptop. It seemed fine, but I found something that is worrying, & I would like help resolving it.

Before the laptop suddenly turned off, about 2 hours prior, I had chosen a group of files to be Transfered over to the external drive. It’s a small drive, fits in about the palm of my hand. When I was checking everything, the files on my external drive seemed fine. Only the most latest one seemed to have any issues. Videos played. Images loaded fine.

Though, when I try to put additional files on the external hard drive, it shows a message that, the “disk is dirty”, & suggests to run a check disk on the drive. I was able to pull up the option to do just that. It took a few hours, about 3 to 5, I didn’t keep an exact count of the time as I started the check & went to do other stuff & checked on it every now & then. When it was done, I opened up the files on the hard drive, & they ran fine. Yet, I still get that message if I try to add anything else to the external drive.

Please help me resolve this issue. If this belongs in a different section, my apologies, just point me to the right place to post correctly on order to get the proper help.

Thanks for reading all this, I hope to get help & hopefully resolve this problem.

 

I should add this was not the first time I put files on this specific external hard drive. I’ve had it for about a week. It was at the low 600’s prior to my attempt where I had a problem. After which, it showed 593 GB of free space remaining.

 

I would like feedback on the following link, as it seems pertinent towards my issue.

https://community.wd.com/t/chkdsk-not-working-dirty/188740/6

 

Yeah, I was trying to avoid that & something to complicated to do. I was asking if I should try the hot fix from the Microsoft site first? As I am running windows 7, like the hot fix is intended to. I’m nervous with this as I was finally able to remove the larger files I have off of my laptop with the new external hard drive. It freed up space up to 310 out of 450 GB. It made me wonder where that other 140 GB is from. I’ve had the laptop since 2012, so besides taking everything off of it, I want to make a backup disk for my laptop, which is the end goal. I do not want to wipe anything. I just want to get prepared for the worst case scenario.

 

This error, like what should I do?

 

Here. Btw, some oddly, the a picture with camera has an error uploading it here yet a screenshot is fine.

 

I’ll do that after I resolve the issue I currently have.

 

The error code is,

0x80071AC3

 

Oddly, it seemed the issue fixed itself, I will describe it after doing a couple of tests. Most likely tomorrow.

 

Did you realize what the error code meant?
On a Windows system, the error code "0X80071AC3" means that your external flash drive / hard drive had not been properly removed during data transmission, which resulted in the system not recognizing the external device.

 

It took a bit of trial & error, yet the scan of the external drive seemed to have worked with a few restarts of my laptop. The same thing happened recently when I touched the cord with my finger. So I’m running another scan. The scan itself is not moving with bugs me. It makes me think the scan is frozen. I don’t know why, but it seems to just need to disk scan & it’s fine again.

I know the problem is the USB port. I just wish I had money to buy a new laptop. Especially with how inflation has been, it is probably best to wait for when prices go way down again, if I can help it.

it’s an odd thing that I try to avoid, as it is only 1 of the 3 USB ports on my laptop.

 

The USB port may not be your problem.
Did you just pull the USB connector out or get clearance from the Request to EJECT the USB?
This is usually on the RIGHT end of the Task Bar near the date and time.