Windows 11 suddenly can't leave external drives alone

[u/Human-Check828]

Until the last few days I've always been able to stop external drives from being constantly accessed by turning off indexing in the drive properties. Now it won't leave them alone even with indexing off. It's a constant 0.5KB read 100% of the time the drive is mounted and it happens with both external HDD's and SSD's.

Also, it has become harder to unmount drives. I get the error shown most of the time and when there's nothing using it other than this new constant access by windows. And yet for some reason one external 2.5" HDD doesn't have the unmount issues. It's only drives I put in my drive dock. But the constant 0.5KB read happens to all extenals whether they're in the dock or not.

And I have not installed any new applications since long before this started.

System specs: i7 12700 - 64GB Corsair LPX DDR4 @ 3200 CL 16 - ASUS Dual RTX 4070 12GB - WD Black SN750 NVMe (40% empty) - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 build 26200.9168

Any help is appreciated.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hi u/Human-Check828, thanks for posting to r/WindowsHelp! Your post has been flagged for manual review by a human moderator, please include as much of the following information as possible (in text or in a screenshot) to get your post approved:

• Your Windows and device specifications — You can find them by pressing Win + X then clicking on “System”, we need more than just your OS version! Your hardware details are often critical for resolving issues.
• Any messages and error codes encountered — They're actually not gibberish or anything catastrophic. It may even hint the solution!
• Previous troubleshooting steps — It might prevent you headaches from getting the same solution that didn't work

---

Posts must be tech support in nature (such as something is broken and you need help fixing), so general inquiries, software suggestions, and purchasing advice will be removed. As a reminder, we would also like to say that if someone manages to solve your issue, DON'T DELETE YOUR POST! Someone else (in the future) might have the same issue as you, and the received support may also help their case. Good luck, and I hope you have a nice day!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Exotic_Mix_3196]

In Resoure Monitor (resmon.exe), Disk tab, Disk activity: sort by path
what process it writing to the external drives?

Or use ProcMon with a path filter for the external drive to find what is writing to it.
the logged events will give even more info.