Partition Recovery™
An expert tool for recovering lost partitions
An expert tool for recovering lost partitions
Last updated: Sep 06, 2021

External Hard Drive I/O Error Occurs: Your Actions

In this article you will find out:

  • how to deal with this issue
  • how to protect your data

Are you ready? Let's read!

About this error

An I/O device error prevents Windows from reading or writing to its contents. This can apply to both HDD or SSD, an external hard drive, SD card, USB storage, CD/DVD, etc. You cannot transfer computer data to and from an external device and also at the same time on the monitor screen when the error "The request cannot be executed due to an I/O device error" appears, error code 105. The reasons for this problem are quite serious, such as:

  • mechanical or logical damage to the hard drive,
  • damage to the file system or its incompatibility with the computer,
  • outdated computer device drivers,
  • incompatibility of the Windows transfer mode with the hard disk.

However, this problem can still be corrected if you know the appropriate solutions. Therefore, carefully study this article and you will be armed and more likely to get rid of the i/o device error.

External Hard Drive I/O Error: fix


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Check connections

First of all, check the cable that is used to connect the external hard drive to the PC. It must be free of any damage and properly connected. Otherwise, use a spare cable and test it with a different USB port.

If that doesn't fix the hard drive i/o error, then move on to another method.

Clean boot OS

To check if a driver or program conflicts with your external hard drive, you need to clean boot your PC. If this helps, then an incompatible driver or program is installed on your system.

So, type "MSConfig" in the search box and press Enter. In the System Configuration window, click the Services tab and select the Hide all Microsoft services check box and click Disable all. On the Startup tab, click Open Task Manager, select all startup items and click Disable. Close Task Manager, go back to System Configuration, select Startup and click OK. Now, just restart your Windows 10 computer to perform a clean boot.

Change system preferences

Windows will not be able to transfer data between the PC and the external drive if the drive transfer mode is not correct. You can fix this as follows:

In the search box, enter "Computer Management", then click "Device Manager" in the left pane. Expand IDE ATA / ATAPI Controllers to see the IDE ATA / ATAPI channels for your PC. Select the channel to which the external drive is connected. Right-click and click on the "Properties" button. Next, on the "Advanced Settings" tab, select the "PIO Only" option in the "Transfer Mode" field. Save changes and check external hard drives with I/O error.

You should now restart your computer so that the system can detect the changes that have been made. After that, your external hard drive will start working properly.

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