Thanks for that will give it a go... funny how things don't work on Windows 1o that used to work well......

Hi Sorry I did not reply earlier but "Life" got in the way and I have been sidetracked.

Firstly I appreciate your reply however whenever I do anything I get msgs such as:

When I go into disk...

Please see update above... I am running Windows 10....

I am getting the above message when in plug an external HDD via USB.
Checking this out forum I Have tried Chkdsk commands at cmd prompt:
chkdsk f: /r
chkfdsk /f f:
for both I get the same reply:...

BRILLIANT THANKS that fixed it
But how did you know that..... why does it have be this way?