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I am trying to turn on Windows indexing service by following one of the answer in this question

I got this error message:

enter image description here

Windows could not start the Windows Search service on Local Computer.
Error 21: The device is not ready.

What's the actual problem?  What do I need to do to fix it?

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2
  • Try opening command prompt as an admin and run system file checker: sfc /scannow. If this doesn't help, event logs might hold additional information.
    – GChuf
    Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 18:33
  • by following one of the answer in this question – Which question is it? Did you forget to add a link?
    – Henke - Нава́льный П с м
    Commented Aug 22, 2022 at 13:45

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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In the Event Viewer, I saw Event 1006, Search, that said: "The Windows Search Service has failed to create the new search index. Internal error <1, 0x80070003, Failed to create application directory: E:\Search\Data\Applications>. " I do not have an "E" drive, so I inserted a USB drive which became "E". As soon as I inserted that, Indexing began and now Search works in File Explorer and Outlook.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/search-and-indexing-stopped-after-update-to/a4cab8b0-43fb-4051-9abf-77e842325736

All the complex solution include reload windows but I found this simple solution worked

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  • Now, you might want to migrate the location of your working search index away from your USB drive as a plugged in USB drive might not be the most stable storage solution for this scenario.
    – stackprotector
    Commented Apr 6, 2021 at 12:14
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Open Start menu/screen

Type:

Windows Search

Select:

Find and fix problems with Windows Search

Follow the instructions to resolve your specific circumstance

enter image description here

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For anyone still struggling with this error like I was do the following:

  1. Open Event Viewer
  2. Look at Windows Logs > Application
  3. Check the Errors in the logs, you should find one which was caused by "SearchIndexer.exe"
  4. Look under Faulting Module Path and this will provide you the location of where the indexer is crashing. You can diagnose from here. For me, this was deleting/renaming an unnecessary file.
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If you have created an Index on a removable drive the same drive path has to be available for you to be able to start the service and/or change setting in Indexing Option.

Thanks Marco Manuel for the tip-off.

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