Damaged Recycle Bin on WD external drive

Hello mataf 45 :) and welcome to the community!

Indeed I haven’t encountered (nor read) messages from other people facing this situation (hand on the heart :) ). For this reason I was curious to search for you :) I’ll send you a summary of the steps I found to remedy a similar situation. I suggest you review the different suggestions and eliminate one possibility at a time :) People, whose topics I read, talk about:

> properly check who the owner of the drive is to verify the access rights of this hard drive:

1/ Right-click the key > Properties

2/ Click the Security tab

3/ Click Advanced > Security tab

4/ Click Change > and your username (check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects)

5/ Click Apply > OK

6/ On the Permissions tab click Edit permissions

7/ Click Add > enter your username > click OK

8/ Check Full Control in the Allow column > click OK

9/ Select Include inheritable permissions from the parent of this object and Replace all child object permission entries with inheritable permissions from this object.

10/ Click Apply > OK

> delete the Recycle.bin folder on this hard drive (this folder would be automatically recreated afterwards):

To do this you could:

1/ view hidden files: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files-0320fe58-0117-fd59-6851-9b7f9840fdb2#show-hidden-files=windows-7

2/a/ delete the Recycle Bin of this external drive via a right-click on it

or

2/b/ run a command from the Command Prompt: Start > type cmd in the search box > Enter > rd /s /q H:\$Recycle.bin Note: the letter H:\ here is just indicative. You must replace this letter with the letter your drive uses (e.g. if it’s G the command would be: rd /s /q G:\$Recycle.bin) @mataf 45, identify well the letter your external HDD uses :)

Step 2/b/ should be followed by a safe disconnect of the USB drive and a system restart. Once Windows is loaded, reconnect the USB drive to the PC and check its behavior, please :)

Fingers crossed and I’m following your case :) Give me news!

P.S. I don’t recommend leaving your drive’s serial number public, @mataf 45 :) If you decide to mask or delete it that would be great :) If editing your message remains impossible you could report it to the forum admins for intervention.

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