Question Windows 11 is corrupting my USB External HDDs ?

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sammyblue

sammyblue

Feb 27, 2025
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Since this past weekend, my USB attached hard drives have been corrupted. I believe I noticed the issues crop up on the 24th.

I thought it was power issues -- I have tried direct to wall, SP, and battery UPS as power sources and the drives keep getting logically damaged.

I bought new drives, new DAS case, shorter usb cable. Every HDD I hook up via USB, regardless of port, eventually shows as RAW.

I tried rolling back the Windows update that was forced on me this last weekend, but I think only a partial rollback was possible.

The new drives were formatted and I used DiskGenius to transfer documents from the corrupted existing drives to one(not both) of the new drives. This completed without issue.

At some point while I was away from the computer, both new drives were trashed and showed as RAW. I reformatted them and powered down for the night. This morning after boot, the one with the recovered files was RAW again.

All data on the drive has been scanned by AV before. All data on the drive has existed for months to years as an archive.

The only changes that took place before running the USB drives without issue for a year+ are:

1. I moved into a different room in the house around 1.5 to 2 weeks before this started happening,

2. The Windows 11 Update that was forced sometime between Friday and Sunday.
 
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Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Try running the built in Windows troubleshooters. The troubleshooters may find and fix something.

Then try "dism" and "sfc /scannow" to find and fix buggy or corrupted files.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-dism-command-line-utility-repair-windows-10-image

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-sfc-scannow-to-repair-windows-system-files-2626161

Look in Reliability History/Monitor and Event Viewer for any USB and/or drive related error codes, warnings, or informational events being logged.
 
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OS: Win 11 Home,
Version 10.0.26100 Build 26100

Processor AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D 6-Core Processor, 4101 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends International, LLC. 3.06.MS02, 9/19/2024
SMBIOS Version 3.4
Embedded Controller Version 255.255
BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer ASRock
BaseBoard Product B650M-C
BaseBoard Version Default string



The system is fine. The issue is thus far solely restricted to USB attached storage.

If I am reading the DISM instructions correctly, that is for repairing Windows 10 system issues.

If I am reading the SFC instructions correctly, it may detect and possibly repair the data, but will not prevent the constant recurrence I am experiencing.

Event viewer shows a large number of VSS and NTFS errors starting on the 21st, which is the date of the latest Windows Update. It looks like Windows keeps breaking the MFT for the drives. It is also detecting torn writes on volumes that have been formatted but have not had data placed in them yet.
 
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Actually if a Windows Update caused the problem then it makes sense to use Windows' repair tools.

Plus the tools may indeed be fixing something - only to have whatever was fixed get broken again.

Take another look at Reliability History/Monitor - Days view. Look for some pattern in the VSS and NTFS errors.

Also FYI:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/volume-shadow-copy-service

A bit long and you can easily find other links regarding VSS.

Objective simply being to take a broader look at it all. You may discover some other relevant factor that is involved.
 
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After getting the rolled back update forced on me again, DISM seems to say my component store is repairable, with SFC maintaining that I have no integrity violations. Not sure which to believe.

I will note that no force on earth would make DISM accept the source provided for it.
 
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kerberos_20 said:
dism cant repair your winsxs folder? source for it is windows image (installation media) can be sourced online or offline (stored locally)
Click to expand...
I am using Windows 11 installation media created from the MS website. I am using the correct index when attempting the dism string. Nothing works. I expect DISM does not work.
 
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sammyblue said:
I am using Windows 11 installation media created from the MS website. I am using the correct index when attempting the dism string. Nothing works. I expect DISM does not work.
Click to expand...
dism is deployment tool, it does work, but your windows update is broken, so try offline (local image) method? ie download media create tool and save it image as iso, unpack it or mount it and point dism to install.wim file

https://www.ubackup.com/windows-10/dism-offline-repair-windows-10.html
here guide, scroll down to offline repair method1 , then skip to step 3, since your component store was already analyzed before and is known to be broken
method 2 isnt for you
 
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kerberos_20 said:
dism is deployment tool, it does work, but your windows update is broken, so try offline (local image) method? ie download media create tool and save it image as iso, unpack it or mount it and point dism to install.wim file

https://www.ubackup.com/windows-10/dism-offline-repair-windows-10.html
here guide, scroll down to offline repair method1 , then skip to step 3, since your component store was already analyzed before and is known to be broken
method 2 isnt for you
Click to expand...
I have the install media as a USB drive using the .esd format -- I assume that will work just as well?
 
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.esd

https://fileinfo.com/extension/esd

(The link includes another possible path to the ESD files.)

Encrypted files.....

To follow along with @kerberos_20 a bit.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...for-dism/2541ef2a-76e4-416a-83ff-61b5ca54f8fb

Noted Windows 7(x64) at the end. Note sure if the MS answer is relevant.

However, it all raises more questions:

What specific folder and file actions are you doing or attempting to do with respect to the use of USB external hard drives?

I am not sure that the problem is Windows corrupting the files/drives per se.

One thought is that Windows deems whatever is being attempted as a security threat or piracy.

Or otherwise simply does not know what to do and all goes amiss.
 
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Ralston18 said:
.esd

https://fileinfo.com/extension/esd

(The link includes another possible path to the ESD files.)

Encrypted files.....

To follow along with @kerberos_20 a bit.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...for-dism/2541ef2a-76e4-416a-83ff-61b5ca54f8fb

Noted Windows 7(x64) at the end. Note sure if the MS answer is relevant.

However, it all raises more questions:

What specific folder and file actions are you doing or attempting to do with respect to the use of USB external hard drives?

I am not sure that the problem is Windows corrupting the files/drives per se.

One thought is that Windows deems whatever is being attempted as a security threat or piracy.

Or otherwise simply does not know what to do and all goes amiss.
Click to expand...
The esd/DISM work has been attempted and failed. DISM will not use any source it is pointed to.

I suspect that is because the entire update library may have been corrupted.

There is no specific folder or action. Simply by being connected to the computer, all the USB hard drives drop and corrupt.

My suspicion is that Windows is trashing the MFT and corrupting all the USB hard drives, possibly through misidentification.

I performed an inline repair last night with a repair update. As of this morning, after running chkdsk against all but one of the drives, the issue has not returned -- though the one drive I have not run it against still throws constant ntfs errors.

Oddly, all drives(except the bad/control drive) are now showing bitlocker encryption, despite my never having turned it on.
 
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As I understand it, BitLocker is enabled by default for Windows 10 and 11 (24H2).

Question: "I performed an inline repair last night with a repair update."

What repair was done? Details?

Knowing what fixed (maybe) things may help determine what happened.
 
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Regarding inline repair:
I utilized the "System Restore using Windows Update". I opted for that when the CBS log showed every component corrupted. I figured there was no way to repair this without replacing that part of the system.

That seems to have worked. After the final restart last night, the USB hard drives have so far remained stable.

My best guess is the update that ran before the weekend broke the Windows management of usb hard drives as well as butchering up the update components.
 
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Interesting. I have had the issue recur on the original drives it happened on before, about one hour ago.

No components are detecting corrupted in the store.

I just saw a "surprise removed" message for the new drives in the new DAS(on UPS).
 
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Windows components began to fail in succession, so I rebooted. I powered off the drive bay with the recorrupting disks and also unplugged a camera I was using last weekend as well. I am going to keep the new/replacement drives in the new bay attached and in use and see how this progresses.
 
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I am curious:

Open Reliability History/Monitor and select Days view.

Expand the window so the Reliability Details can be seen and read.

Select a couple of days with mulitiple errors (red circles) and/or warnings (yellow triangles).

Take screenshots of those days.

Post the screenshots here via imgur (www.imgur.com)

Also open the Disk Management Window and expand so all drives can be seen including the external USB drives.

Post that screenshot as well.
 
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Apparently, Windows didn't feel like keeping any reliability data from before the 28th. That day was the biggest offender, so that's the shot below:

https://imgur.com/a/PnyzO5k
View: https://imgur.com/a/PnyzO5k


The DM Window shows nothing special or unexpected since my last post -- I have not reconnected the camera or the old drive bay. All the non-OS drives show basic, healthy NTFS partitions and the OS drive has a second, larger recovery partition(expected) in it since the rebuild.
 
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Sorry if this has already been suggested but have you done a firmware update for your motherboard and also checked if there are new drivers for your USB Devices? I know it's kind of a long shot but in the past I have had similar issues and a motherboard BIOS update sometimes fixes it.
 
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@sammyblue

Not sure why there are no entries prior to the 28th: Was there some update or reinstall?

View and post the technical details from that failed Windows Update.

And Windows logs can be cleared by apps, tools (e.g., Event Viewer), or users via code.

Hopefully there would be some confirmation request presented before the logs would be cleared. Windows does restrict some clearings.

= = = =

What are those "Galaxy Client Helper Application" and "Galaxy Communication Services"?

Purpose - what do they do or what are they supposed to do?

Did you knowingly install them? Before or on the 28th?
 
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Ralston18 said:
@sammyblue

Not sure why there are no entries prior to the 28th: Was there some update or reinstall?

View and post the technical details from that failed Windows Update.

And Windows logs can be cleared by apps, tools (e.g., Event Viewer), or users via code.

Hopefully there would be some confirmation request presented before the logs would be cleared. Windows does restrict some clearings.

= = = =

What are those "Galaxy Client Helper Application" and "Galaxy Communication Services"?

Purpose - what do they do or what are they supposed to do?

Did you knowingly install them? Before or on the 28th?
Click to expand...


I think Galaxy Services like that are for old/abandonware Star Trek Games from pre 2009. Not 100% sure. But they don't need to be running all the time. As is with most things.
 
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