What is parameter incorrect error on hard drive? The Incorrect parameter issue is a common problem associated with hard drive, external hard drives, USB flash drives, and SD cards. When you try to open the disk, a "Location is not available" window appears and says "The drive is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect". With this error, you cannot properly access the drive. As a result, files are lost.
Why does my hard drive say parameter is incorrect?
The drive becomes inaccessible, and the internal data becomes too. But don't worry, there are several ways to help fix hard drive parameter incorrect error. Now, before we solve the problem, let's take a brief look at the possible causes of errors that can help us solve the problem easily. The main reasons are as follows:
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Remove the hard drive without ejecting. Forcing to remove an external hard drive can harm or even destroy the partition's boot record, resulting in incorrect parameter errors. Remember to eject the external hard drive every time you use the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media option.
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USB port issues. USB is the bridge between the computer and the hard drive, which can be damaged if something goes wrong.
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Bad sectors on hard drives. Even a bad sector can make the drive inaccessible.
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File system error. The file system is responsible for managing the data on the partition. Once damaged, you may not be able to open the drive.
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Viral infections. The virus infection can also cause problems with inaccessible hard drives.
After understanding the reason that may cause the hard drive parameter error", in order to ensure the security of the data in the hard drive, it is recommended to use the data recovery software to restore the data in the hard drive and save it, and then repair the problem. So let's take a look at how to recover data from inaccessible hard drive.
How do we recover data from inaccessible hard disk with incorrect parameter error?
If you want to recover data from inaccessible hard drive, you need to use professional data recovery software. It is recommended that you use DiskGenius. DiskGenius is professional data recovery software with superb algorithms, powerful functions and a wide range of users. It can cope with various cases of file recovery, partition recovery, recovery result is excellent. Moreover, it also supports to perform BitLocker partition recovery, Ext4 partition recovery, RAID data recovery, etc.
The following is a step-by-step guide for recovering lost data from an inaccessible drive using DiskGenius.
Step 1. Connect the inaccessible hard drive to your computer. Download and launch DiskGenius to your PC. Select the unreadable drive, and then click the Files tab on the right pane, as shown below.
In some cases, DiskGenius is able to display files of the corrupted partition lost data directly after it is launched. If your file is not listed, go to the next step.
Step 2. Select the inaccessible partition and click the Tools > Load Current Partition Intelligently, as follows:
If the file system type was NTFS before the drive became not accessible, you can try to load the partition intelligently. This function works when an inaccessible drive is caused by file system corruption. If lost files are loaded correctly, you can save the required data to another working partition and complete partition recovery. If not, proceed to Step 3.
Step 3. Select the inaccessible drive again and click the File Recovery button in the toolbar to open the Recover Files window.
Click the "Start" button, and DiskGenius begins searching for missing files and file directories. It displays files during the scan and constantly updates the scan results as more files are found.
Step 4. Preview found files.
The file preview function allows users to preview the file content while the scan is working. Users can pause or stop the scan if all the required files are found and no further scan is needed.
Step 5. Save lost files to a safe location. Select the files and folders you want to restore, right-click on the selected data, and select "Copy To".
How do I fix parameter incorrect error on my hard drive?
Method 1: Format the corrupted hard drive to fix incorrect parameter error
A lot of times the hard disk prompts the parameter incorrect error due to the partition file system error or damage, so we can fix it via formatting the drive. We can use DiskGenius Free Edition to format partitions.
First, Right-click the inaccessible drive you want to repair, and click "Format Current Partition" menu item. Then the program will pop up the "Format Partition" dialog box.
Second, Select the file system type and cluster size in the dialog box, and click the "Format" button to prepare the formatting.
Before starting the formatting operation, the program asks for confirmation in case of an error. The figure below:
Finally, click "Yes" button to start formatting immediately.
Method 2: Check and repair bad sectors for the hard drive
If the formatted cannot be formatted by DiskGenius or Windows File Explorer, there might be bad sectors on the hard drive. It is common to see that the "The drive is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect" has something to do with bad sectors. DiskGenius Free edition provides the function of verifying and repairing bad sectors for hard drives and USB disks.
Note: Repairing bad sectors can damage data, so please backup files you want to keep prior to trying following steps.
Step 1. Launch DiskGenius Free Edition, select the disk you want to check bad sectors and click Tools > Verify Or Repair Bad sectors.
Step 2. Click Start Verify button and DiskGenius starts to scan the disk and check if there are bad sectors on it.
Bonus tip: How to protect a drive from getting incorrect parameter errors?
After trying the methods provided above, you can now access your storage devices and data without any obstacles. That was not the end, however. It's also important to catch some useful tricks to prevent the parameter incorrect errors on hard drives, external hard drives or USB flash drives.
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Backup important data regularly
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Always run antivirus software
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Correctly insert and unplug external devices
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Keep disk drivers up-to-date
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