If you receive an error “The request failed due to fatal device hardware error” while copying files between an external hard disk or when you have multiple disks connected to your Windows 11/10 PC, it means there is some fault in the hardware. There can be multiple reasons for this, and in this guide, we will help you fix this error on your Windows computer.
Fix The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error
As I was saying, the error could be caused by many reasons, including a loosely plugged wire in your hard drive, an uninitialized disk, issues with SMART options, and so on. Follow these suggestions to resolve the issue.
1] Repair hard-disk errors
Many a time hard disks run into a temporary issue where the OS considers that it’s not healthy anymore. To fix it, you should run chkdsk, and other repair utility in the command prompt to resolve those issues.
If this cannot solve your problem, you may have to think about replacing your hard drive. When you do so, make sure to back up all your data on the Windows PC by using some free third-party backup software. You can also use it as a secondary hard drive.
Related: Error 0x800701e3 in External Hard Drive while copying files
2] Use S.M.A.R.T
Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology or SMART is a tool that can monitor hard disks health and send out signals if it is failing. This will make sure you don’t get caught unawares by a hard disk failure for no apparent reason.
3] Initialize the disk
The disk or the partition from where you are trying to copy the data may have accidentally un-initialized itself. You can use the Disk Management tool or any third party service to re-initialize it. Post this; it will not give any error when copying data.
4] Format your Hard Drive
If you have taken a backup of your data or the data doesn’t matter to you, you can try low-level format on your hard drive using third-party software, or if your OEM has any tool to offer, you may have to reinitialize the disk to use it with Windows PC.
Let us know if any of these tips helped you to fix the error.
Related post: Error Code 0x800701E3 when installing Windows.
