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I have copied a folder with a bunch of files onto a 2 TB USB drive, which I formatted as NTFS. Some time later, I inserted the USB drive into the computer to look at the files. When I opened the directory, the files weren't there. The directory was still there, but all the files have disappeared. I tried to navigate to that directory within the USB drive. I was able to cd into that directory, but ls returned an input/output error. Attempting to create a new file using the touch command also produced the same error. What is going on?

/media/user/0EB2CB2FB2CB1A5B/monthly_reports$ ls
ls: reading directory '.': Input/output error
/media/user/0EB2CB2FB2CB1A5B/monthly_reports$ touch file.txt
touch: cannot touch 'file.txt': Input/output error

I inserted the USB drive into my Windows PC as an experiment. When I attempt to open that directory using the File Explorer, a message box pops up:

Location not available
F:\monthy_reports is not accessible.
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
Galaxy
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  • Most likely you forgot to safely remove the drive before unplugging it. – gronostaj Jul 26 '22 at 04:58
  • @gronostaj No, that's not it, this happened when the drive was already plugged in. – Galaxy Jul 26 '22 at 06:35
  • Where did you get this drive? What type of USB drive is it? Is it a new drive or an old one? – Mokubai Jul 26 '22 at 10:29
  • @Mokubai I got this drive on Amazon. It is a 2TB USB drive. It is a new drive. – Galaxy Jul 26 '22 at 15:57
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    Was the drive suspiciously cheap? What type of drive is it? A 2TB USB "stick" would surprise me and could be fake, but an HDD would be normal. For example I would expect [this](https://www.amazon.co.uk/External-Ultra-Slim-Portable-Compatible-Notebook/dp/B0B461S6N1) to be a fake drive and probably a 16GB stick in disguise, while I would trust [this one](https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-Elements-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B06W55K9N6) – Mokubai Jul 26 '22 at 16:53
  • @Mokubai Yes, the USB drive was a cheap one, with a price comparable to the first one. However when plugged in the USB drive and examined it's properties in the file explorer, it was listed as the full 2TB. – Galaxy Jul 26 '22 at 17:09
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    Many of those drives have a fake capacity that appears at first glance to be correct but then appears to overwrite or "lose" data as you write to them. Some info is at [How is the capacity of a harddisk faked?](https://superuser.com/questions/270194/how-is-the-capacity-of-a-harddisk-faked) as well as https://superuser.com/questions/1169039/information-on-how-fake-usb-drives-work – Mokubai Jul 26 '22 at 17:15
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    Try running [h2testw](https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/H2testw.shtml) on it to find out if the drive is "good" or fake. Some other alternatives at https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/detect-fake-usb-flash-drives-sd-cards-ssd-disk/ – Mokubai Jul 26 '22 at 17:24
  • @Galaxy It's a fake. Please report it. – ChanganAuto Jul 26 '22 at 17:50

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