Can't see any files on my external hard drive

[Preston Garvey]

On my external hard drive, after I first start up my computer, it works fine and all the files work

fine. But after my computer has been on for a while, the files in the external hard drive are still

visible but not accessible.
The icons for all the files become generic icons and won't load the actual thumbnails of pics, videos,

music, etc. After an even longer time of my computer being on, the files completely disappear.

I just recently (after seeing my files were all gone) tried unplugging my external hard drive while my

computer was on and plugging it back in and now the files are all visible again and working properly.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening or how to fix it?

This was first brought to my attention when I was using my external hard drive to download torrent

files and after completing downloads, the torrents wouldn't upload and the error message given on the

torrent downloader was cyclic redundancy check. When I looked into this, it seemed like the problem was

a bad sector on my external hard drive but after restarting my computer (which made all the files

visible and working again), I don't think that's the case so now I have no idea what the problem is.

[TrumpIsPresident]

But after my computer has been on for a while, the files in the external hard drive are still visible but not accessible. After an even longer time of my computer being on, the files completely disappear.

I just recently (after seeing my files were all gone) tried unplugging my external hard drive while my computer was on and plugging it back in and now the files are all visible again and working properly.

From that statement the most likely issue is that a power management profile is at work.

(even more likely if this computer of yours is a laptop)

If that's the case what this means is that over time your computers settings are disabling power to the drive.

(if its an old external drive and you're using it on win10 then a valid wakeup profile might be absent)

First thing to look at is the settings of your power profile:

1. Open the Power Options panel, you can type "powercfg.cpl" in the run bar.

2. Click "Change Plan Settings" for the power profiles applicable.

3. Click "Change Advanced Power Settings".

4. Scroll down to "USB Settings" > "USB selective suspend setting" and see if the setting is Enabled or Disabled.

If its Enabled then change to Disabled, reboot, and see if your problem is resolved.

If its Disabled, and the power profile with this setting is active, then you may need to go through each USB controller and change a power management setting manually.

To do that:

1. Open the device Manager, you can type "device manager" in the run bar.

2. Find "Universal Serial Bus controllers" and expand.

3. For each item right click and choose "Properties"

4. Click the "Power Management" tab.

5. Uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

Reboot may be required, and these settings may be reset if you don't first adjust your power profile.

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What you're doing with these settings is telling Windows that you don't want it to decide when/if to shut off the power to any device connected via the USB ports.

This is operating under the assumption that the issue you're experiencing is that Windows is shutting off the power to the USB ports, which it can do over time as a power saving feature if configured as such, and that the mechanism within the operating system for recognizing and re-powering up the drive is not functioning.