If you are trying to copy or move files to and from your external storage device but you suddenly encounter the error 0x800703EE, then you’ve come to the right place as this post will guide you on how you can fix this error in your Windows 10 computer.
This kind of error when copying files may be accompanied by an error message that says, “The volume for a file has been externally altered so that the opened file is no longer valid”. This error prevents you from copying or moving the files to and from the external storage device.
This kind of issue might be caused by a service that belongs to a backup program that could be blocking the operation or a conflict with your third-party antivirus program. In addition, the error could also be due to corrupted or outdated USB drivers or it could be caused by a disabled Windows Backup and Volume Shadow copy service. It is also possible that some system files are corrupted or that the drivers for the external device are also corrupted. Whatever the cause is, here are some options you need to check out to fix the error.
Before you troubleshoot the error, you might want to try moving the files to another location on your local drive and remove the USB drive and insert it back again. After that, try to move or copy the file to the USB drive and see if it still throws an error. If it does, then you need to troubleshoot the problem further by following each one of the suggestions given below.
Since it could be a driver issue, you can try to update or reinstall the Universal Serial Bus Controller drivers using the Device Manager. Refer to the following steps:
Note: If it is a regular USB drive, then it will be listed as a USB Mass Storage Device but if you have a USB 3.0 device, then look for a USB 3.0 Extensible Host Controller.
Note: If updating the USB Controller drivers didn’t work, you can try to reinstall them instead.
The next thing you can do to fix error 0x800703EE is to check the Volume Shadow Copy and Windows Backup service.
If a third party program like antivirus is the one that’s causing the problem, you can try to put your computer in a Clean Boot State to isolate the issue by following these steps:
Note that this option is only applicable if you see the error 0x800703EE accompanied with the “The volume for a file has been externally altered so that the opened file is no longer valid” error message. Before you start, create a System Restore Point first.

From the menu choose command prompt (admin)
In command prompt type sfc /scannow and press ENTER
Leave the computer for the operation to be completed and Reboot your computer
From the menu choose command prompt (admin)
in command prompt type: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth and press ENTER
wait for the process to be finished and Reboot your computer“Windows Sandbox failed to start. Error 0x80070015. The device is not ready. Would you like to submit feedback about this issue?”If you are one of the users who encountered this kind of error in Windows Sandbox, then you’ve come to the right place as this post will help you sort this problem out. All you have to do is follow each one of the options provided below.
“The program can not start because corefoundation.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem”. "This application has failed to start because CoreFoundation.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem." “The procedure entry point_CFBundleCopyFileTypeForFileData could not be located in the dynamic link library corefoundation.dll.” "MobileMe Control Panel cannot continue as Apple Application Support is missing or outdated. Please uninstall and reinstall the latest version of iTunes and MobileMe Control Panel to fix this issue.”Though this error code is not fatal but if it is not fixed immediately it will hamper your ability to load and run Apple programs on your system.
Error Causes| Option | Recommended use |
|---|---|
| Automatically select unsigned drivers | Useful for testing on computers that are running versions of Windows that do not require signed drivers. |
| Automatically select drivers built for older versions of Windows | Useful for testing driver compatibility with newer versions of Windows. |
| Automatically select all drivers installed on this computer | Provides maximum coverage in terms of the number of drivers that are tested on a system. This option is useful for test scenarios where a driver can interact with other devices or drivers on a system. This option can also exhaust the resources available for Special Pool and some resource tracking. Testing all drivers can also adversely affect system performance. |
| Select driver names from a list | In most cases, you will want to specify which drivers to test. Selecting all drivers in a device stack allows the Enhanced I/O Verification option to track objects and check compliance because an I/O request packet (IRP) is passed between each of the drivers in the stack, which allows for a greater level of detail to be provided when an error is detected. Select a single driver if you are running a test scenario that measures system or driver performance metrics, or if you want to allocate the greatest number of resources available for detecting memory corruption or resource tracking issues (such as deadlocks or mutexes). The Special Pool and I/O Verification options are more effective when used on one driver at a time. |