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My laptop drive has WIN 10 installed. I am try to use the same drive as an external drive. So basically I take the drive out from the laptop and put it in USB enclosure and the put some folder with files on the drive. Then I put the drive back on my laptop and start the laptop. Everything looks good and I navigate to the directory where I put the folder.

When I click on the file to open it I get the message below and the folder disappears

"Location is not available is unavailable. If the location is on this PC, make sure the device or drive is connected or the disc is inserted, and then try again. If the location is on a network, make sure you're connected to the network or internet, and then try again. If the location still can't be found, it might have been moved or deleted. - OK

Is there some setting that I am overlooking or is it just the behavior??

Thanks

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This behavior fits a handful of predictable causes when the same physical disk is used as both the boot/OS drive and a removable data disk. described removing the drive, adding folders while it was a USB device, then reinstalling it and seeing the new folder disappear or give the “location not available” error. was right to point toward ownership/permission or system-protection issues, but a few other possibilities should be checked before resetting ACLs or taking ownership.

Start with a short diagnostic checklist (run these from an elevated prompt or PowerShell session):

  • Confirm how Windows is mounting the partition: open Disk Management and verify the data area has a drive letter rather than being mounted as a folder under C:.

  • Look for NTFS reparse points / symbolic links (these can look like folders in Explorer but point to targets that don’t exist on this machine). In PowerShell:

    Get-ChildItem -Force -Recurse 'E:\' | Where-Object { $_.Attributes -band [IO.FileAttributes]::ReparsePoint } | Select-Object FullName

  • Check file attributes (hidden/system) and Explorer’s “Hide protected operating system files” option; a folder can be present but invisible unless those are shown. Use attrib to inspect attributes.

  • Inspect ACLs to see whether the files are owned by a different SID or are inaccessible:

    icacls "E:\path\to\folder"

If reparse points or shortcuts are found, remove them and place real copies of the files on the disk instead of links. If permissions are the problem, icacls can show current ACLs and can reset them (use with caution and after a backup). If the partition is mounted as a folder, assign a permanent drive letter in Disk Management. If BitLocker or another full-disk protection was used while the disk was external, unlock with the correct key before changing files.

For a stable long-term setup, keep OS and data on separate partitions (or separate drives), avoid placing personal files inside OS-protected folders, and maintain a dedicated data partition with a fixed drive letter. Back up before making ACL/mount changes.

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Member Avatar for rproffitt

Tell more. There is some issue if you put folders in Windows or such. So next time drop it in a new user's folder and then don't use File Exporer. Use the command line (DIR /A).

Member Avatar for PS189

did you mean Windows folder?
There are no issues when using the drive as USB : able to move folder/files ..behave exactly like external hard drive should.

Its just that when I put the drive back on my laptop and start the laptop the "added" files are not being recognized and i get that error.

I'm not sure wheter during boot up there is some integrity check that figures out that some foreign files are present ?

Member Avatar for rproffitt

Or it's ownership, permission, location issue. When you place a NTFS drive on another PC, when it goes back you might have to use an elevated command prompt to DIR /A to see the files then use TAKEOWN or other tools to take ownership of the folder and files.

However I had hoped you would have revealed detail. That is, some poor soul was trying to replace files in the Windows folder and getting upset about Windows File Protection or WFP.

Edited by rproffitt because: Clarifying
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