chkdsk being erratic with external hard drive (exFAT)

[afmgreentea]

I have an exFAT formatted external hard drive that I use to back up my computers and share files between my work laptop (Mac) and my home laptop (PC).

Most of the time, when I plug in my drive, it comes up with the check disk message where it asks whether I want to "Automatically fix file system errors" and/or "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors."

No matter what combination I choose, quite often (but not always!) it stalls out the program. Even when it works, 9/10 times when I plug in my drive, it says there are problems. Most of the time, I can still access the drive, but it doesn't recognize the name of the drive (just "Local Drive F:" instead of the name I gave the drive.) Sometimes it figures it out. Sometimes not.

I know, at some point I probably unplugged my drive before the computer was done with it. But I am very careful now, and I just want to know that I can use this drive reliably. What do I need to do to make sure that my PC laptop doesn't throw a hissy fit every time I plug in my external hard drive?

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum. Its a known problem with exfat its not a good idea to use a disk with a Mac as under certain conditions it will cause massive problems https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2843376/chkdsk-tool-incorrectly-reports-exfat-volume-file-system-as-corrupted

 

[afmgreentea]

What would you suggest then? I need to be able to store and transfer files from my work computer (Mac) and my Windows computer (home). What kind of disc or formatting should I use?