"Cannot read from source file or disk" External Hard Drive Trouble (Solved)

[René Artois]

What the title says. I get the message only when moving to the hard drive, and when creating a folder in the hard drive. The files already on it open fine, as does moving stuff from it to my main pc.

Any ideas?

[René Artois]

I'm so proud of myself finding my own solution to something! I'll write it here in case people have the same problem. This is in Vista as well by the way.

1) Open start menu
2) Type cmd into the search bar.
3) Right click on cmd.exe and click on run as admin
4) Type into the command prompt: "chkdsk f: /f" Note- the f is what my HD in called, it may vary for you.
5) Then this will come up:

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPEN HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N)

6) Type in y and hit enter.
7) Let it do it's job

[Ishan]

Or could have just right clicked your drive properties in my computer and just Chkdsk from there.

[René Artois]

Nope, that gets you something similar to point number 5, except that way you can't get around it. So you have to go to the command prompt and force it.

[twcenter2013]

try CBD(Copy Bad Disk)