I’ve had my SanDisk 512 GB flash drive plugged into my desktop computer for years, and for some reason now my computer recognizes that the flash drive is connected, but I can’t access or see its contents. When I try to click on it, it says it’s write-protected.

The contents are really important, there are family photos and videos we’ve been taking for years. I want to recover the files without resetting the flash drive— is there a way I can access the files?

I tried to do some research before writing here, but the topics were really old and they were talking about formatting the flash drive. I don't care about the flash drive, I just want to recover the files.

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Hi! I've had some problems with my PC recently and I'm completely stumped as to what the problem is.

My PC originally stopped displaying after I had left it running. When I came back, the computer itself was still on, but there was no display. I turned the monitor on and got nothing.

I initially suspected the GPU, so I tried different HDMI cables and other basic troubleshooting. I then put my husband's known-working graphics card into my PC, but I still got no display.

I then started testing the RAM. I have 4 × 8 GB Corsair DDR4 RAM. I tried running the PC with two sticks and then with just one. I noticed some very strange behaviour: with two sticks installed, my keyboard and mouse wouldn't light up, whereas with four sticks they would.

There was also one occasion during troubleshooting where the display briefly came back and the PC successfully booted into Windows. It stayed working for around 4–5 minutes, and then the display cut out completely again.

I have also tried clearing the CMOS. After doing this, I briefly got a message on the screen saying that the CMOS had been cleared. This was while using my husband's graphics card. However, that message never appeared again, and I haven't been able to get any display since.

The GPU testing is where I'm especially confused:

- My husband's known-working GPU in my PC: no display, and the CPU debug light comes on. There is no VGA debug light.

- My RTX 3060 in my husband's PC: no display, and his motherboard shows a VGA debug light.

- So both PCs are giving different diagnostic lights depending on which GPU is installed.

My current specs are:

- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

- Motherboard: MSI B550-A Pro

- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060

- RAM: Corsair 4 × 8 GB DDR4

- PSU: Corsair RM650e 650W

I have already replaced the PSU because I've had power surges in the past and initially assumed the PSU had failed. I completely rebuilt the PC today, but the problem is still there.

So I'm really confused about what is actually faulty.

The symptoms seem to point in different directions:

- My RTX 3060 doesn't display in my PC.

- My RTX 3060 also doesn't display when tested in my husband's PC, where it causes a VGA debug light.

- My husband's known-working GPU doesn't display in my PC, but my PC shows a CPU debug light instead.

- RAM configuration seems to change the behaviour of my PC.

- I have successfully reached Windows once, but only for around 4–5 minutes before losing display again.

- I have successfully received the CMOS-cleared message once, but haven't been able to reproduce it.

- The PSU has already been replaced.

- The PC has been completely rebuilt.

At this point, I'm wondering whether I could have a problem with the GPU, motherboard, CPU, RAM, or potentially multiple components.

All of my tech-support friends are completely stumped too. I don't mind buying replacement parts, but I really don't want to start replacing perfectly good components at random.

What would you test next, and is there a way to determine which component is actually faulty before I start buying new parts?

I can provide photos of the motherboard/debug LEDs and any other information that would help.

My PC started freezing at random, out of nowhere, with no trigger. A full clean install of Windows didn't fix it. Worse: almost every fix I tried seemed to work for a few days... and then the problem came back. After weeks of ruling out suspects (RAM, disk, drivers, Explorer, two keyboards, two mouses, USB ports, BIOS, background software), I found out the middle-click switch on my Logitech G502 was firing phantom clicks on its own. Each phantom click triggered auto-scroll, which captures the mouse for the foreground window... every other window went "dead," looking exactly like a system freeze. Fix: disabled the middle button in the mouse's onboard profile.

Consider this a guide for everyone out there chasing a 'random freezing' problem, ruling out suspect after suspect and finding nothing, who, like me, never once thought to suspect the mouse. I used IA to help me describe everything.

How it started:

One day the PC simply began "freezing" at random. No new hardware, no new software, no update I could tie it to, nothing had changed. It would lock up out of nowhere, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes longer, and then go back to normal as if nothing had happened. No pattern: it could happen twice in an hour, or not at all for days.

My first assumption was the usual one: "Windows is broken somehow". So I went nuclear early: a full clean install. Wiped the drive, reinstalled everything from scratch.

The problem survived the clean install. In hindsight, that was the loudest clue in the whole case so far.

The symptoms, in detail.

If you're searching for something similar, here's the exact fingerprint. During a "freeze":

• The cursor moved normally, but clicks did nothing;
• Ctrl+Alt+Del responded instantly, and coming back from it, everything returned to normal;
• Alt+Tab worked during the "freeze";
• The scroll wheel worked;
• Only the foreground program responded, everything else was dead, even when I brought it to the front with Alt+Tab;
• And the weirdest part: sometimes the auto-scroll cursor (the middle-click one) appeared without me clicking anything.

The pattern that fooled me 3 times.

This is the part I most want people to find, because it's what kept me chasing the wrong suspects for weeks. Almost every fix I tried appeared to work:

• Moved the mouse to a different USB port → quiet for days → relapse;
• Cleaned the keyboard and the Logitech G502 with isopropyl alcohol → quiet for days → relapse;
• Replaced the entire keyboard → quiet for ~3 days → relapse.

Everything that got ruled out (in order, so you can appreciate the size of this rabbit hole).

1. Full clean install of Windows → problem persisted;
2. RAM in Task Manager → low usage, all normal;
3. Disk (CrystalDiskInfo) → clean SMART;
4. CPU/GPU temps → fine;
5. Windows Memory Diagnostic → no errors;
6. Hung Explorer? → Restarting explorer.exe during a freeze changed nothing;
7. Moved the mouse to another USB port → "fixed it" for a few days... then it came back;
8. Replaced the ENTIRE mouse → "fixed it" for a moment... then it came back (or I thought so?!);
9. Disabled USB selective suspend + removed ghost devices in Device Manager → nothing;
10. Stuck modifier key? (phantom Ctrl/Alt/Shift) → cleaned the keyboard with isopropyl alcohol → "fixed it" for days... then it came back;
11. Replaced the ENTIRE keyboard → "fixed it" for 3 days... then it came back;
12. XMP → this one deserves its own chapter: I enabled the 5600 profile and got a blue screen. Turns out the i7-12700KF (12th gen) officially supports only DDR5-4800 on the memory controller. Disabled it, BSODs gone (but the "freezes" weren't);
13. Gigabyte's DDR5 Auto Booster → it was on "Auto," silently overclocking my RAM to 5000 without my knowledge. Disabled it → nothing;
14. Updated BIOS and chipset drivers → nothing;
15. Fury CTRL (RAM RGB software) → uninstalled → nothing;
16. Clean boot (msconfig) → problem CONTINUED even in a clean boot;
17. Filter drivers in the input stack (reg query on the keyboard/mouse classes) → clean, only kbdclass and mouclass;
18. Logitech G Hub → uninstalled → problem persisted.

Eighteen suspects. Eighteen acquittals.

The turning point.

Three clues closed the net:

Clue 1: during one "freeze," the browser accepted clicks but the Start menu didn't. Later, the reverse. Meaning: the system was NEVER frozen, something was stealing the clicks.

Clue 2: Alt+Tab brought another window to the front, but it stayed dead to clicks. That's the signature of stuck mouse capture: when a window captures the mouse, ALL clicks go to it, no matter what's in front. Keyboard focus and mouse capture are independent things in Windows. And the Ctrl+Alt+Del secure desktop forcibly cancels the capture — which is why it "unfroze" everything.

Clue 3: the auto-scroll cursor showing up on its own. Auto-scroll is triggered by the middle click (clicking the wheel). If it appears with nobody clicking... the system is receiving middle clicks nobody sent.

Caught red-handed.

I opened an online mouse tester site and left it running. Result: MIDDLE CLICKS counting up on their own, with my hands off the mouse. Spinning the wheel 700 times registered 4 phantom clicks the switch fires from vibration, I guess.

The complete mechanism of the "freeze," explained:

1. The worn middle-click switch fires a phantom click;
2. The foreground window enters auto-scroll mode and captures the mouse;
3. Every other window goes dead to clicks (even via Alt+Tab), scrolling still works (pan mode), the cursor moves normally;
4. Ctrl+Alt+Del → secure desktop cancels the capture → "everything goes back to normal."

Every bizarre symptom, explained by ONE ten-millimeter component.

Bonus: the button also had a double failure: it fired on its own, but didn't register when I clicked it on purpose (likely a cold solder joint or degraded internal contact: vibration closes the circuit, pressure opens it).

The fix

Reinstalled G Hub for 10 minutes just for this: enabled the G502's onboard memory and assigned "Disable" to the middle button. It's stored in the mouse's own chip: works with no software running at all. The switch can fire all it wants: the mouse no longer transmits anything from that button. Then I uninstalled G Hub again.

Open-link-in-new-tab can be remapped to a side button, or just use Ctrl+left click.

Lessons (for anyone hunting a similar ghost)

1. If Ctrl+Alt+Del responds instantly, your PC is NOT frozen. Locked-up hardware doesn't open the secure desktop. The problem is software/input in your session;
2. If the cursor moves but clicks are dead, suspect stuck mouse capture: a phantom button (from the mouse OR another HID device) or a stuck modifier key;
3. Auto-scroll cursor appearing on its own = phantom middle click. Go straight to a mouse tester;
4. With an intermittent problem, "it stopped after I did X" proves nothing. Only "it came back despite X" proves anything. Set a trial period (I used 7 days) before declaring victory;
5. An online mouse tester is the most underrated diagnostic tool there is: leave it running in the background and it catches the phantom event with a timestamp;

If you're going through something similar: test Alt+Tab during the "freeze," check whether scrolling still works, and leave a mouse tester open. It might save you the weeks I lost.

I'm having the same issue as in this post (and the comment from December 2025):

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/s/5EuwMHADFm

My bluetooth often turns itself off, a restart usually fixes this but it's happening more frequently now. I have no external antivirus software as stated in that post, only Windows' own.

I only use BT for my mouse, which does NOT have a USB dongle to plug in to connect it via BT, though I have ordered one now because this issue doesn't seem to be going away and I'm hoping having a dongle will fix it. also, if I turn the BT off myself, I'm not able to turn it back on. I can flick the switch but it just greys out and doesn't actually turn BT on.

I have an ASUS TUF gaming laptop if that means anything in context of the problem.

I have tried:

-disabling and enabling BT on device manager

-uninstalling and installing an updated driver from the ASUS website

-turned off power saving options that causes BT to turn off

-restarted BT support services, also toggled it to run automatically

also:

when BT gets turned off, often device manager lists one of 3 things each time: "the device is working properly" "there are no drivers installed" or "code 45"

I normally don't have this problem but this started yesterday for whatever reason.

Directly went up to 93% memory usage with basic startup apps, I know those are not the problem because I never had this.

Had CRAZY frames drop and low fps when playing ow because it makes the usage go to 99%.

Idk what the problem is, ig it's something hidden

Recently my I noticed my faceID stopped working for reasons I won’t get into (I know I can get it working again by just setting it up again, that’s not the problem).
When I brought this up in casual conversation, someone mentioned how solely relying on faceID to unlock my phone is a security risk since law enforcement and other bad actors can use it to access my phone if I’m physically present.

This got me thinking, what would be the optimal way of locking my phone? Just a password? If so, what length would be best and should it be a random string of characters or an actual word I commit to memory?

Lastly, if this isn’t the right question for this sub, could anyone point me to a better place to get a solution for this issue?

monitor will suddenly lose display and then flicker back on and then some times static lines will flicker as well. had this for about 6 years now. got a new PC 3 months ago and already tried different ports with the same results.

My elderly father stupidly gave details to obvious scammers. I jumped in and stopped him but the computer sign in screen was saying blocked or something along those lines. I assume the scammers on the phone were about to ask for money for it but that’s when I took the phone and essentially told them to fuck off and turned the WiFi off. I know abit about computers and built my own by I am far from an expert. Is the clean install of windows enough? We’ve called the banks and cancelled the cards and changed a lot of passwords including the Microsoft one is there anything else we need to do/worry about. The scammers seemed like amateurs in a call centre and haven’t accessed banks or the Microsoft account it seems

Hey there

I bought a mini pc fire at MN56 from AliExpress, did a clean install, installed the drivers from their site, it worked. However every time I put the pc on sleep or if I shut it off, there's no internet as if the drivers weren't installed, when I reboot the pc it works

I went into the bios and put everything on performance instead of balanced but to no avail

Much appreciated for the help

Hello,

I bought my entire set up over the last two days, gpu still en route, and when i plug everything where it is suppoused to be, literally nothing happens.

Motherboard is not responsive at all, besides when i am flashing the BIOS (z790 tomahawk wifi and i7 14700k).

Me and my new best pal chat gpt tried figure it out for hours now, and we have came to a conclusion that mobo is semi fried, because it has low voltage to flash bios using i/o panel, but no high voltage to power anything.

Is the mobo done? there is no additional tricks i can try to wake it up? i got it just today and would like to know your opinion before i return it.

Specs below should you need it:

z790 tomahawk wifi

i-7 14700k

liam li galahad trinity 360

corsair vengeance CMH32GX5M2E6000C36

thermaltake toughpower gt 1000w

im using old samsung ssd and old geforce gtx, replacements coming tomorrow.

Looking forward to some replies.

i have ryzen 5 5600x, 9060 xt, ddr4 16gb and msi b550 a pro mobo. my pc works completely fine under load but when i go away and come back it is on the login page and i know it crashed. i don’t know how to fix it and don’t wanna perform a windows reset. i’m sharing the mini dump file from windows. dump file link: https://limewire.com/d/vt5Mj#EXlAuHNcVc

For the last 2-3 weeks Windows Defender has been finding threats of the same type regularly:
Trojan:JS/Redirector.THR!MTB
location: C:\Users\%User%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\IE\RANDOM_FOLDER\anto[1].htm
It might happen 3 times in 10 minutes or once a week. Does anyone what is it or what should I do with it?

I got a hand-me-down pc, but for some reason there is a C and F drive, both have 115 GB of space. The C drive is full so I can't download anything on it, and I can't seem to get the F drive to run anything. Is there a way to fuse these drives together? Running Windows 11

The past 2 days when playing FFXIV it sometimes refuses to control the game when i have certain windows selected. Instead the controller controls the mouse.

If Discord or Opera GX are selected, it controls my mouse. If Steam, Desktop, the game, or any other application is focused, it controls the game.

I have looked through all of Steams settings and disabled everything people recommend I disable, but the only thing that worked yesterday was restarting my computer 2 times. After the 1st time it would work when i had any window selected except the game itself.

I’m not the best with computers, so I’m gonna try and get some help here. After getting lots of Medal popups mentioning a lack of storage and having a game crash on startup with a message of “FATAL ERROR: OUT OF MEMORY” , I finally decided to try and clean up my C drive when I look at the drive via Steam, it says that I have 50 gb of Steam games taking up space and 455 gb of Non Steam games taking up space.

I’m aware that a lot of it may be files that are required to make the computer run, but I want to make sure I’m not missing something here. When I got to Windows Settings > System > Storage and click on “installed apps” (which it literally says is taking up the most storage out of everything) it only lists about 20 apps and they’re all less than 3 gigs. How do I find all this mystery stuff that’s making my computer unusable?

I have been trying to access the bios when booting my pc but it always seems to jump straight to my log in.

What I’ve tried so far:
All F keys and delete
Advance restart to access UEFI
CMD shutdown /r /fw /t 0

Any, and all help is appreciated right now. TIA

I bought I new battery thinking that was the culprit but the battery slowly drained with use and wouldn't charge. I replaced the charger and the adaptor so it would be compatible but still wouldn't charge. I’d show in the photos the outputs and the inputs of the charger with the numbers of the charger and the cradle but this community doesn’t allow photos.

Any advice would be super helpful.

I've had Steelseries headphones for about 9 months now, and a couple days ago, they stopped working while I was using them when my power went out and they were connected to my laptop. I've tried everything that I could find, restarting, windows sound options, literally everything there is to try I've done. The microphone works on the headset.

This only happens on my laptop, on my phone they're fine.

I really don't know what to do at this point and any help is appreciated.

Things I've tried:

• Windows Sound Settings
• Volume Mixer
• mmsys.cpl
• Device Manager
• Windows Audio Service
• Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
• Realtek Audio Universal Service
• Realtek Audio Console
• Realtek(R) Audio driver

So up till yesterday the Bluetooth on my PC has been working normally Sunday night I was playing a game and working fine but once I woke Monday booted up my PC and connected my controller like normal but then it kept disconnecting and reconnecting and first I didn't know what was causing this until later I noticed it disconnected only when I switched focus to my 2nd monitor then when I focused back to the main monitor it started working again.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers still have the problem and even tried WiFi/BT antenna that came with the motherboard and same behavior.

Currently using for WiFi/BT: TP Link BE9300 Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth PCIe Adapter (Archer TBE553E)

Specs:

Windows 11 Version 25H2 and up to date

X870 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 ICE

Ryzen 9800X3D

32GB RAM

RTX 3080 Ti

Hello, I have lines on my 27in 1440p monitor, however they dont appear on any of my other monitors.
The lines blink on and off on a 1 second cycle almost perfectly.

PC specs: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9P6rxf
Video of the issue: https://youtu.be/IFzsxSA-jdc

Monitor is set to the correct refresh rate, in both the monitor itself, and the windows settings.
GPU is up to date on drivers. latest windows updates have been done as well.
GPU is about 1 year old ish.

My laptop (Dell XPS with Windows 11) died in the middle of a meeting. Plugged it in, now its trying and failing to update. Any way to stop the process? This has happened to me before and I would love to know if there's a fix.

Suddenly my wifi stopped showing , tried restarting and nothing happened? What do I do ? I got lenevo loq, please help me , no traces of it in vantage or device mamager

I got this new smartwatch and I need to install this app called Da Fit to connect it to my device. I only have an iPad and a PC and you need a phone to do basically anything on the watch. Is there a way to install an IPhone only app on iOS?

I have a PDF that is a digital version of a book with the pages each individual when some artwork is split to both pages so it doesn’t look right. How can I make it so that the PDF is double page view but the cover is still one page so the pages align correctly? I’ve found some software that can do it but they’re all paid.