How to Fix The parameter is incorrect and is not accessible

We use drives every day and every moment when we turn our computers on. All our data is saved and accessed through them. They have become a part of our lives without us even knowing. With this being said, it becomes extremely difficult to work on a computer when you cannot access your drive. One of these errors occur when the computer fails to access your drive with a prompt “parameter is incorrect”. This error is caused due to a number of reasons. We have listed down potential solutions after rigorous testing. Take a look.

Solution 1: Running chkdsk

We can try checking if your computer has any discrepancies or corrupt sectors. It is possible that the location where your device drivers are located is corrupted or in conflict with another entity.

1. Click on the Windows search bar present at the left side of your screen and type “Command Prompt”. Right-click on the application which returns the result and select “Run as administrator”.
2. Once in the command prompt, execute the following command:

CHKDSK E: /r

Here “E” is the name of the disk driver which is followed by the “/r” command. If you have another drive, you should replace the name accordingly. You can easily check the name of the drive by opening My PC.

3. This process might take some time as your entire disk is being checked for errors. When the scan is complete, execute the following command:

CHKDSK E: /f

4. Again, the process might take some time. Be patient and let the process complete.
5. After the process is done, execute the following command to check if there are any discrepancies in your system.

sfc /scannow

6. If Windows detects any discrepancies, it will inform you accordingly. If it does, execute the following command:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

7. After all the processes are complete, restart your computer and check if the problem got solved.

Note: If you prompted by the message “Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts (Y/N)”. Press “Y”. Then restart your computer. Upon the restart, your computer will scan the drive and proceed with the process. Also, note that some sectors (if found bad) will be erased so some of your data might be lost.

You can also do all the scans at once by running the command “chkdsk /F /R /X H:” where the letter “H” is the name of the drive. It takes a lot of time (maybe an entire night) but hopefully, your drive will be fixed.

Solution 2: Checking through Safe Mode and Diskmgmt

Before we move on in booting into safe mode, we will first check if the drive is visible in your disk management system on your operating system. Disk management is a tool in windows which allows you to view all drives along with their consumed space.

1. Press Windows + S to launch the search bar. Type “diskmgmt” in the dialogue box and open the first result which comes forth.

2. A new window will open consisting of all different drives connected to your computer. Check if the drive causing the problem is listed. If it is, proceed in booting into safe mode.

By using the safe mode, we can determine whether the problem is due to any applications or the problem lies in the operating system. If the machine works perfectly in safe mode and the disk/CPU usage is normal, it means that some external application or service is causing the problem or you do not have correct permissions to access the drive.

1. Follow the instructions in our article on how to boot your computer into safe mode.
2. Once booted in the safe mode, open your disk drive and check if you can still access it.

If you can access your files in safe mode, you probably don’t have permission to use the drive in your normal account. Follow the steps below to change ownership of the drive and make sure that you can access it easily.

1. Press Windows + E to launch the file explorer. Click on “This PC” present at the left side of the screen.
2. Right-click on the disk drive causing the problem and select “Properties”.
3. Now make sure that the disk drive doesn’t have sharing enabled and is also your ownership. You can get an idea of how to change ownership using our article.

Note: There is also a workaround for the accessibility option where you can change access permissions using the command prompt. You can only execute this command with an elevated command prompt.

Once in the elevated command prompt, execute the following instruction:

c:\>cacls volume_drive_letter:\ /g everyone:F /c /t

Here “volume_drive_letter” is the name of the drive such as “E”.

This command changes the permission of your drive so everyone can access it instead of only limited user groups. Be sure to do this knowing that all other user groups will also be granted access. Restart your computer and check if the error went away and you are able to access your drive successfully.

Solution 3: Changing Drive Type from NTFS to FAT32

As our last resort, we will try to convert the file type of our drive from NTFS to FAT32. Do note that this process might take a lot of time as each sector in your drive is being changed. In addition, the data present on your hard drive will be erased completely so be sure to back up your data before proceeding with the method. You also need administrator privileges to follow this method.

1. Press Windows + S to launch the search bar. Type “command prompt” in the dialogue box, right click on the result and select “Run as administrator”.
2. Once in the command prompt, type in the following command:

format D: /FS:exFAT /V:VolumeName /Q /A:4096 /X

Here “D” is the drive letter to represent the drive causing the problem. Make sure to replace it accordingly with the letter of the drive on your computer. Once the process is complete, restart your computer and plug the drive again (if it is external) and check if the problem got fixed.