USB SSD hard drive keeps disconnecting

I have an Asus Vivobook S1605ZA laptop running Windows 11 and I bought a Seagate SRD00F1 Backup Plus portable drive on which I store documents, photos etc, most of which were moved across from my old PC when I bought the laptop. When plugged in to the USB 3 port, the file manager comes up and I can access all the files fine but after a few minutes the portable drive becomes inaccessible. This means that I can't save the documents I was working on etc and is very frustrating. I tried 'working' the drive by opening and closing one file after another and found that the drive did not disconnect when used in this way, even after half an hour, but if I just open a file and work on a document or spreadsheet, after a few minutes I cannot save the document and although the file manager displays all the files I cannot open them - I get the message 'D:{Folder Name} is not accessible. The device is not ready' I have tried altering all the energy saving settings in windows with no success.
Does anyone have any suggestions to make the drive accessible for as long as it is plugged in?

 

Hi, sidsilver! What comes to my mind as possible solution is open the Control Panel, go to Power plans and in advanced options set to not ever sleep the usb ports (even when it's on battery). You can find control panel in windows 11 by hitting the search icon on the taskbar and writing "Control Panel".

Hope this solves your issue.

 

Many thanks Invictus, I had already tried that but i saw elsewhere on the net it was suggested to go into the USB settings in device manager, which I did and all is now well!