There’s a Problem with This Drive USB Drive
When you connect your USB drive to your Windows computer, you may see a small interface pops up from the bottom right corner with an error message saying:
There’s a problem with this drive. Scan the drive now and fix it.
The following screenshot is an example:
This error message usually means that your USB drive encounters issues. For example:
- The USB drive was not removed properly last time.
- The USB drive is attacked by viruses or malware.
- The file system of the USB drive is damaged or corrupt.
- The USB device driver is outdated.
You need to take some measures to solve the problem. MiniTool Software collects some useful methods and shows them in this article.
In addition, you can also know how to use the best free data recovery software to retrieve files from an inaccessible USB drive.
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Fix 1: Unplug the USB Drive and Plug It into Your PC again
In some cases, there’s a problem with this drive USB / removable drive is not a real error. You can unplug the drive from your computer, then plug it into your PC again. Then, you can check if the error message disappears and if you can use the USB drive or removable drive successfully.
If the issue persists, the thing is not a simple thing. You need to take some advanced measures to remove the error messages.
Fix 2: Recover Data from the Drive, then Scan and Fix It
According to the prompt on the error message interface, you can select to scan and fix the USB drive or removable drive. But to guarantee the safety of your data, you’d better recover files from that problematic drive before fixing it.
Move 1: Recover Data Using MiniTool Power Data Recovery
If you cannot access that USB drive due to there is a problem with this drive, you’d better use professional data recovery software like MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover your data in advance.
This software is specially designed to recover deleted files like images, videos, documents, etc. from various kinds of data storage devices. However, this software can also work to recover files from inaccessible storage drives. That is, this software can help you get the files saved on the problematic USB drive.
This software has a free edition, which allows you to scan drives and recover up to 1GB of files without paying any cent. You can first try this freeware to save your data.
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After downloading and installing this software on your PC, you can follow this guide to retrieve your data.
Step 1: Keep your USB drive plugged into your PC.
Step 2: Open the software to enter its main interface.
Step 3: Move your mouse cursor to the USB drive and click the Scan button to start scanning it.
Step 4: Although you can see the found files during the scanning process, it is recommended to wait until the whole process ends to get the best data recovery effect.
The scan results include lost files, deleted files, and existing files on that USB drive. If you only want to recover the existing files, you can open that path and select your needed files to recover. Of course, you can also recover your deleted or lost files if necessary.
Step 5: Tick your needed files and click the Save button to continue.
You can preview the files you want to recover and make a confirmation.
Step 6: Select a suitable location to save your selected files.
If the size of the files you want to recover exceed 1GB, you need to use an advanced edition of this software to recover files without limits. MiniTool Software offers different software editions for personal users and business users. You can go to MiniTool’s store to select a proper one according to your situation.
Move 2: Scan and Fix the USB Drive or Removable Drive
After recovering your files, you can feel free to repair your USB drive.
Case 1:
If the error message interface is still there, you can click the error message, then you can see another interface pops out:
Then, click Repair drive and follow the on-screen guides to scan and fix the USB drive.
Case 2:
If you have missed the above interface, you can use the other method to error check the USB drive.
Step 1: Press Windows + E to open File Explorer, then click This PC from the left panel.
Step 2: Right-click the USB drive and select Properties.
Step 3: Switch to the Tools tab, then click the Check button under Error checking.
Step 4: On the pop-up interface, click Scan and repair drive, then follow the on-screen guides to finish the repair process.
Fix 3: Run CHKDSK to Repair the USB Drive
You can run CHLDSK in Command Prompt (Admin) to check the file system and file system metadata for logical and physical errors on the USB drive. However, if you use CHKDSK without parameters, this command will only display the status of the drive but does not fix any errors. So, you need to use it with /f, /r, /x, or /b parameters.
You can use this guide to run CHKDSK on the USB drive to recover the error of There’s a problem with this drive:
Step 1: Click the search icon from the taskbar, then search for cmd.
Step 2: The best match should be Command Prompt. Then, you need to select Run as administrator from the right panel. This will run Command Prompt as administrator.
Step 3: Type chkdsk *: /f /r /x into Command Prompt, then press Enter to run it. In this step, you need to replace * with the drive letter of the target USB drive.
Step 4: Wait until the whole process ends. This command can automatically find and fix the found errors.
After using this fix, you can go to check if the error message disappears and you can use the USB drive or removable drive normally.
If this way doesn’t work for you, you can try the next one.
Fix 4: Run Hardware and Device Troubleshooter
Windows has a built-in tool that can help you fix the USB drive: it is Hardware and Device troubleshooter.
You can use these steps to open and run Hardware And Device Troubleshooter:
Step 1: Click the search icon from the taskbar and type cmd.
Step 2: Select Command Prompt from the search result to open it.
Step 3: Type msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic into Command Prompt and press Enter to run it. This will open Hardware And Device Troubleshooter.
Step 4: Click Advanced and select Apply repairs automatically.
Step 5: Click Next to continue.
Step 6: This tool will begin to detect problems and fix the found errors. You need to wait patiently until the whole process ends.
After running Hardware and Device Troubleshooter, you can unplug your USB and plug it into your computer again, then check if the error message pops up. If the message disappears, you can go to File Explorer and check if you can automatically open the USB drive.
If the issue persists, you can use the next solution to have a try.
Fix 5: Enable Quick Removal
Windows has removal policies for removable USB drives. If your device is set to get better performance, you must use the Safely Remove Hardware notification icon to disconnect the device safely. This will cause an issue: if you directly remove your device, it can may issues. For example, you may see the error message of there’s a problem with this drive.
However, you can choose to enable the Quick removable policy. Here is how to do this work:
Step 1: Right-click Start and select Device Manager to open it.
Step 2: Expand the Disk drives option, then right-click your USB device option and select Properties.
Step 3: Switch to Policies on the pop-up interface.
Step 4: Make sure Quick removal under Removal policy is selected.
Step 5: Click OK to save the change.
If the error of there’s a problem with this drive removable drive still pops up, you can keep trying the next fix.
Fix 6: Update or Reinstall the Device Driver
If you are not using the latest version of the USB driver, you can also encounter this error of there’s a problem with this drive. So, you can update or reinstall the Device Drive to solve the problem.
How to update the USB device driver?
Step 1: Right-click Start and select Device Manager to open it.
Step 2: Expand Disk drives, then right-click the target USB device and select Update driver.
Step 3: Follow the on-screen guide to update the USB driver to the latest version.
How to reinstall the USB device driver?
Step 1: Right-click Start and select Device Manager to open it.
Step 2: Expand Disk drives, then right-click the target USB device and select Uninstall device.
Step 3: Click Uninstall on the small pop-up window to start uninstalling the driver.
Step 4: Restart your computer. Then, Windows will automatically install the latest version of the USB device driver on your PC.
Fix 7: Format the USB Drive to Normal
If all the above methods can’t help you remove the error message – there’s a problem with this drive removable drive, you will need to format your USB drive to normal.
Formatting a drive will delete all files on that drive. So, if you have never backed up your files or rescued the files on it, you need to use MiniTool’s data restore tool to get your data from the drive.
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It is easy to format a removable USB drive on your Windows computer.
Step 1: Go to This PC from the desktop.
Step 2: Find your removable USB drive, then right-click it and select Format.
Step 3: On the pop-up interface, select the file system, allocation unit size, and Volume label for the USB drive. Then, click the Start button to start formatting the drive. If you select Quick Format, the formatting process should end quickly. However, if you don’t select Quick Format, Windows will perform a deep format and this process will last longer.
After formatting the USB drive, you can use it as a new one.
In addition, you can use another USB formatter to format your USB drive. For example, you can use Disk Management, MiniTool Partition Wizard, or diskpart to format your USB drive. You can find these three ways in this post: How to Format USB Drive with Three Free USB Formatters Windows 10.
Wrapping Things up
Are you bothered by there’s a problem with this drive removable drive / USB drive? If yes, we hope the methods introduced in this article can help you remove this error. There should be a suitable solution for you.
Moreover, if you want to recover data from your USB drive, you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery. This is a professional data recovery tool that is worth trying.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Should you have other related issues or good suggestions, you can contact us via [email protected].
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 7 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery and phone data recovery, YouTube videos download, partition management, and video conversions.