How to prevent Windows Explorer from going 'not responding' ?

[Sebastian42]

When Windows Explorer opens the THIS PC screen in x32Win10ProV20H2, very often it does not fully populate. The right pane may be empty, or lack only the entry for the system drive – correspondingly the left (Navigation) pane will lack the entry for the system drive. After a while 'not responding' appears in the title bar. This happens only in the THIS PC screen of Windows Explorer, so I can get access to destinations I want, by avoiding THIS PC and using the navigation panel of other Windows Explorer screens. In the Save As window of file processing programs, the system drive is often missing from THIS PC. I'm looking for a SPECIFIC remedy for the problem – general procedures like scannow, DISM, scandisk etc have failed to fix it.

 

[micropage7]

what apps that you installed there, some it caused by the apps like corel

 

[Sebastian42]

Dont have Corel. The problem started this year, but not after any particular program got installed.

 

[Bill_Bright]

general procedures like scannow, DISM, scandisk etc have failed to fix it.

When you ran SFC /scannow, did it report any errors it could not fix?

 

[Jose Jeswin]

Do you have a USB drive or External drive or a phone connected?..i have seen similar phenomenon like this...Also check for SMART errors on your HDD if you have one...

 

[Sebastian42]

S.M.A.R.T. is in good shape.

I have a USB and phone connected. I will leave the phone disconnected till June. If that improves things, it's up to me to choose between keeping the phone connected and suffering that malfunction. If no improvement, then in June I can try an alternative th having the USB connected.

P.S. You are the first out of a dozen forums that has made this insightful suggestion; in view of that, I will post a separate thread to this forum, about another peculiar annoyance.

Having disconnected the phone, THIS PC is behaving normally again - let's hope that lasts.

 

[Jose Jeswin]

So glad you could fix it..

 

[Mussels]

Usually this happens when a drive is having issues being detected, being internal or external

Glad you got it sorted with the phone - check closely if the cable itself or charging socket on the phone is damaged, my dad had a similar issue and i found char marks inside a type-C cable and one half of the pins inside his phone had burned out without him even noticing :/