How to Prevent a USB Flash Drive from Corrupting the Files and Folders Within It

Open Device Manager and go to the Drives section and select your USB flash drive.

Select Policies and check Optimize for Performance.

Try not to just pull out the drive, especially for iPods; you need to left-click on the Safely Remove Hardware icon in your system tray, and select your flash drive. Only after Windows tells you that you can remove the drive, should you do so. You may find that after clicking on the Safely Remove Hardware icon in your system and selecting the drive you wish to remove, your system may respond to the effect that The device cannot be removed at this time". This indicates that either files are open, Windows has not completely written data to the device, or Windows will just not tolerate ejecting the device at this time. There are two fairly simple ways to resolve this:Prevent a USB Flash Drive from Corrupting the Files and Folders Within It Step 4 Version 2.jpg

Close all applications and try again,

Shut down your computer. Okay, this is not usually convenient, so:

Close all applications, and using Task Manager, end explorer.exe. You can try this method to restart it:

First, select explorer.exe from the task list, and click on End Process. Cancel.

Do this again.

If you receive an End Program dialog in a moment, you can answer affirmatively and Explorer will restart. This does not work on all versions of Windows. If not, then choose explorer.exe again, and choose End Task.Prevent a USB Flash Drive from Corrupting the Files and Folders Within It Step 11 Version 2.jpg

Answer yes. You will probably have to restart Explorer by choosing New Task in Task Manager.Prevent a USB Flash Drive from Corrupting the Files and Folders Within It Step 13 Version 2.jpg

Fill in Explorer and your taskbar should reappear.

Choose "Safely Remove Hardware", and when selecting your device it should report that it can be 'safely removed'. Note - After restarting Explorer, some of your system tray icons may not reappear. This is a harsh method, and you should restart your computer at the earliest opportunity.Prevent a USB Flash Drive from Corrupting the Files and Folders Within It Step 16 Version 2.jpg

Restarting Explorer can cause data loss if open applications have not saved their data. Some data devices come with their own utility software. Look it over, it may help you with these issues.Prevent a USB Flash Drive from Corrupting the Files and Folders Within It Step 18 Version 2.jpg