File removal from Seagate 4TB removable drive

Question

File removal from Seagate 4TB removable drive

BWDavis 0

Has there been any reports of automatic data removal from a portable hard drive after August windows 11 updates/patch Tuesday. The drive in question is a 4 TB Seagate model srd0nf2?

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Answer 1

Emma1-N 13,675 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Welcome BWDavis,

I am not aware of any documented Windows 11 August or Patch Tuesday issue that automatically removes data from external Seagate portable drives, including the SRD0NF2 model. Microsoft's current Windows 11 known issues do not list a confirmed problem involving automatic deletion of files from USB hard drives. [learn.microsoft.com], [learn.microsoft.com]

To better understand what happened, could you clarify:

Which Windows 11 update was installed before the files disappeared? You can check this under Settings > Windows Update > Update history
Were the files actually deleted, or does the drive now show less data than expected while the storage space is still in use?
Is the drive being used on only one PC or on multiple devices?
When you open Event Viewer > Windows Logs > System, do you see any disk, NTFS, or USB-related errors around the time the files went missing?

As an initial check, please open Command Prompt as Administrator and run: chkdsk X: /scan

Replace X with the drive letter of the Seagate drive. This will check the file system for errors without making changes.

Looking for your update.

Emma1-N 13,675 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-09-18T00:41:09.98+00:00

Hello BWDavis,

I just wanted to check if my previous response addressed your question correctly. If there is anything I may have misunderstood, I would truly appreciate it if you could provide a bit more detail to help me better understand your needs.
BWDavis 0 Reputation points

2026-09-18T19:03:07.48+00:00

I will look into those when I get the machine. I'm looking this up for an acquaintance of mine and was my initial inquiry for possible known issues. I can't completely answer which update yet, but as stated, once I get a hold of the machine and drive in question. Thanks for the idea about the drive space, I believe the reported size on disk had changed as well but again cannot confirm as of yet.

Will update when I have more info. Thanks again.
Emma1-N 13,675 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-09-18T23:37:37.5866667+00:00

Hello BWDavis,

Thank you for the update. Based on the information available so far, I'm not aware of any known Windows 11 update issue that automatically deletes files from Seagate external drives.

Once you have access to the PC, please check the installed update history and whether the drive's used/free space changed after the files disappeared. That information will help determine whether this is related to file deletion, file system corruption, or another storage issue.

Feel free to post back when you have more details, and I'll be happy to help investigate further.
BWDavis 0 Reputation points

2026-09-23T19:32:54.3066667+00:00

The laptop is only used sporadically for their DJ gigs.

But looks like the following. Aug 9 had an Ntfs warning, event ID 140. This warning was surrounded by disk warnings event ID 153 (initial disk warning) then ID 51. This was the timeframe the drive was still intact.

It was powered on a couple days prior to run updates, but Sep 11 was when it was realized files were missing on the portable HD. Around that time the event viewer indicates multiple Ntfs errors, ID 98, 55, then 130s. with two other 98s afterwards. This indicated file structure corruption, and that a chkdsk was done.

They couldn't tell me the file(s) size difference, and they did not actually run chkdsk themselves.

The windows update history indicates updates completed successfully, however I've run across some windowupdateclient install failures.
Emma1-N 13,675 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-09-24T04:14:54.57+00:00

Hello BWDavis,

Based on the event sequence, this looks more consistent with disk or NTFS file system corruption than a Windows Update directly deleting files. The Disk events (153, 51) followed by multiple NTFS errors (55, 98, 130, 140) suggest the drive was encountering read/write or file system issues before the missing files were discovered.

Could you check whether a FOUND.000 folder exists on the Seagate drive? If CHKDSK repaired corruption, recovered files may have been placed there. That may provide additional clues about what happened.
BWDavis 0 Reputation points

2026-10-05T19:18:57.94+00:00

No,

No Found.000 folder. They also confirmed that they did not perform a chkdsk.
Emma1-N 13,675 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-07T08:00:59.4366667+00:00
Hello BWDavis,

Thank you for the additional details.

The screenshot still points primarily to NTFS file system corruption, as the repeated NTFS events (55, 98, and 130) occurred around the time the files were found missing. Based on what you've shared so far, I still do not see evidence of a known Windows Update issue that would automatically remove files from an external Seagate drive.

One question: when the drive is opened today, are the missing items:

Entire folders that no longer exist, or

Files missing from folders that are still present?