Question Will files/folders on my computer other than what was being copied be damaged if I remove an external device mid-transfer?

[ComputersOftenIrritateMe]

Let's assume that someone were to 'pull the plug' on their external hard drive right in the middle of copying various files over. Obviously, there would be the potential for corruption in the copies that were actively being moved over, but what about other files/folders/whatever on the destination device (a Windows 10 laptop, for example)?

Would there be a possibility of other documents, photos, videos, etc. on the computer's drive being damaged/corrupted in a scenario like this? Even if these files were completely unrelated and unaffected by the copying that was taking place during the disconnect? I have read that the file system of the external drive can get corrupted, but what about the files and file system of the destination computer?

I ask this as I have had some issues with file transfers while using my Android phone. During a large transfer of photos from my phone to my windows 10 pc (Using the included USB cable), the copying failed after a while, with an error telling me something like 'the device stopped responding' or something similar. After the status bar disappeared, I pulled the plug (seeing as there was no option to eject) and was met with several duplicate popups stating that the device had stopped responding.

Now, from my understanding, Android uses MTP protocols, which explains the lack of an eject option, but I still can't shake the feeling that I may have negatively effected my computers files/file system in some way. It did look like the desktop went white for a moment and refreshed a few times during the issues, so who knows.

 

[kira-faye]

Shouldn't affect anything with a modern OS. Windows 10 will protect itself, much like you figured, and the only thing that may be "damaged" are the partial copies on the PC. Don't stress.

 

[ComputersOftenIrritateMe]

Shouldn't affect anything with a modern OS. Windows 10 will protect itself, much like you figured, and the only thing that may be "damaged" are the partial copies on the PC. Don't stress.

Just curious, how would the files I mentioned have been damaged in older operating systems assuming they aren't directly affected by the transfer that was happening?

 

[kira-faye]

Just curious, how would the files I mentioned have been damaged in older operating systems assuming they aren't directly affected by the transfer that was happening?

I mean they shouldn't have been, but I can tell you from experience that if your luck was really bad they might be. I've always been terrible about hitting eject, so I speak from experience. 😉

As for the "how" behind it all, that's more technical than I typically get. I don't know how older OSes handled file system calls, memory segregation, etc. but imagine it has to do with that.

 

[USAFRet]

Let's assume that someone were to 'pull the plug' on their external hard drive right in the middle of copying various files over. Obviously, there would be the potential for corruption in the copies that were actively being moved over, but what about other files/folders/whatever on the destination device (a Windows 10 laptop, for example)?

Possibly.

Just because you the User is not doing anything with them, the system might be.

 

[zinkles]

Let's assume that someone were to 'pull the plug' on their external hard drive right in the middle of copying various files over. Obviously, there would be the potential for corruption in the copies that were actively being moved over, but what about other files/folders/whatever on the destination device (a Windows 10 laptop, for example)?

Would there be a possibility of other documents, photos, videos, etc. on the computer's drive being damaged/corrupted in a scenario like this? Even if these files were completely unrelated and unaffected by the copying that was taking place during the disconnect? I have read that the file system of the external drive can get corrupted, but what about the files and file system of the destination computer?

I ask this as I have had some issues with file transfers while using my Android phone. During a large transfer of photos from my phone to my windows 10 pc (Using the included USB cable), the copying failed after a while, with an error telling me something like 'the device stopped responding' or something similar. After the status bar disappeared, I pulled the plug (seeing as there was no option to eject) and was met with several duplicate popups stating that the device had stopped responding.

Now, from my understanding, Android uses MTP protocols, which explains the lack of an eject option, but I still can't shake the feeling that I may have negatively effected my computers files/file system in some way. It did look like the desktop went white for a moment and refreshed a few times during the issues, so who knows.

Files on the external HDD may be damaged, even if they are not the files that were in the copy/transfer process. Basically, pulling the plug will probably result in many of the files you have in the external HDD to be corrupted. it shouldn't have any effect on the files in the computer.

If you weren't moving the files, you shouldn't be damaging the file that is in the computer. You might have some issues, specially with Windows explorer when a drive is disconnected like that, which from what I've seen and experienced, it might lag and freeze. Nothing that will damage the system files that are on the computer though.

This is all assuming that your pulling the plug on the external HDD, nothing else.

It did look like the desktop went white for a moment and refreshed a few times during the issues, so who knows.

That's due to the Windows Explorer thing mentioned above.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Let's assume that someone were to 'pull the plug' on their external hard drive right in the middle of copying various files over. Obviously, there would be the potential for corruption in the copies that were actively being moved over, but what about other files/folders/whatever on the destination device (a Windows 10 laptop, for example)?

Assuming the destination still has power when the data connection was cut, then the chances of other files being corrupted is minimal to zero. As far as the destination is concerned, the data stream stopped and the last operation gets aborted.

If the power was cut, then I'd argue the chances are still minimal. Hard drives these days are designed to basically bring the head to the parking area as fast as possible if power is cut to minimize head crashing. For SSDs, it applies a voltage to the destination flash cells, so even if power is cut, it shouldn't really affect anything else because the voltage just dies off and it can't write to anything.

Would there be a possibility of other documents, photos, videos, etc. on the computer's drive being damaged/corrupted in a scenario like this? Even if these files were completely unrelated and unaffected by the copying that was taking place during the disconnect? I have read that the file system of the external drive can get corrupted, but what about the files and file system of the destination computer?

If you're using NTFS, then it has something called a journal. Any modification operations in the file system are first made to the journal, which is then committed later to the file system. This feature is what makes NTFS and other file systems with this feature more reliable against power failures.

The only time I could see a higher likelihood of unrelated file corruption is if the destination drive is either heavily fragmented for HDDs or flash pages need to be erased for SSDs. If there's any data that has to be shuffled around, then cutting power during that operation could screw up the data for that file.