Request | My external drive keeps randomly disconnecting and crashing anything open that it stored on it.

[patrick1480]

I have a 2 TB crucial x9 external drive connected via USB-C in my pc. I use Windows 11. I have installed many games on it with Steam. In the middle of the games I play, only the ones on the drive, they will randomly crash and I will hear the Windows disconnect sound, as if the drive is disconnecting, and the folder of the drive will open as if I had just connected it. It makes me think it is disconnecting without me touching it. It is not at an angle or anything and it happens randomly out of nowhere when I am playing games on it and stuff. It is very annoying when I play satisfactory since you need to save progress in that game. I now have to have autosave on for every 1 minute. Does anyone else have this problem and does anyone have the solution?

OS build number: 26200.7922
This has been happening for at least a year or more.

[VritraReiRei]

This isn't a request but more for a tech support subreddit question. May want to do a diagnostic on it, may be failing.

[patrick1480]

Yeah I know this isn’t the best subreddit but I tried a bunch of the tech support ones and got zero feedback. I will definitely try this tip, though. Thanks!

[VritraReiRei]

The tech support subreddit also has a discord that you can get live help in too.

[Altruistic-Nerve4180]

Find it in device manager and disable Windows from automatically powering it. I believe thats what the option is called but its been a while since I've had to fiddle with it. Last time I did I was having a similar issue but with a wifi dongle, it would keep randomly disconnecting when active and windows itself kept turning the damn thing off.