explorer.exe crashing when searching in external hard drive

Hello,

Lately I have noticed that when I perform a search in my external hard drive, explorer.exe crashes. I read that it may be because some file has a long path. How can I be sure about what is causing the problem? The hard drive is new so I could return it but I would like to rule out if this is a hardware problem or a windows problem.

Faulting application name: explorer.exe, version: 10.0.16299.492, time stamp: 0x721b1ba3
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.16299.611, time stamp: 0xa29d2306
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0000000000039cb0
Faulting process id: 0x582c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d44765991454a7
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 64eee1bd-35f4-4880-9d81-320a5dc431f1
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:


Application: explorer.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: exception code c0000005, exception address 00007FFD8EB29CB0

Thanks

dalchina said:

You can check the disk (although as you say, seems unlikely):
Try Hard Disk Sentinel (trial). This gives a particularly clear report on HDDs and SDDs and offers other features including a surface scan.

Else try HD Tune, Health and Error Scan tabs.

Are you indexing the external drive or doing a conventional non-indexed search (slow)?


How do I find files with a path length greater than 260 characters in Windows? - Stack Overflow
post labelled 17



or

Long Path Tool 5: advanced long path files manager

hello,

i checked the file out.txt and its listing the path of every file in the hard drive, not the ones that have 260+. Anyway i followed this tutorial which is similar How to determine a Windows File Path Length and the max path length was 250

I wasnt aware that it was possible to index external hard drives, I will try it and see what happens. The crashing never happens right away, but rather after 10mins or so during the search.

I didnt run HD Sentinel but WD Drive Utilities and WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. Both results (complete/extensive +2hrs) were ok.

dalchina said:

Hi, indexing it was just a question - if not I wouldn't bother trying to do so as it won't solve your problem.

Try running (admin command or powershell prompt)
chkdsk X: /F

- where X is the drive letter of your external drive.

I just did another extensive search in C this time (so in the sdd) and it crashed again after 20 mins or so so, the drives are ok, its the file explorer that its just crashing when working for a long time.

Sorry for the delayed reply,

I was trying to solve this issue on my own, I exchanged the harddrive but unfortunately the problem still exists (even on a different brand) i think it stops working as soon as it reaches a folder. The chkdsk came out normal (I think):

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Windows.


A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
548864 file records processed.
File verification completed.
24812 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
26249 reparse records processed.
641546 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
26249 reparse records processed.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Cleaning up 5467 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 5467 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 5467 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
46342 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
36606704 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

123741183 KB total disk space.
49675788 KB in 202552 files.
135392 KB in 46343 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
671491 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
73258512 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
30935295 total allocation units on disk.
18314628 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 60 08 00 4b cc 03 00 64 44 07 00 00 00 00 00 .`..K...dD......
9b 00 00 00 ee 65 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .....e..........

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

I tried in safe mode, clean boot, but nothing 8(

could someone please read my dump file: Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

dalchina said:

There's the start. The rest is a long list of dlls

hello, what program are you using? and does this mean my pc is broken? I tested the new hard drive in another laptop with windows 7 and the search was fine.