This page applies in 2 situations:

• If you get the following error message when starting Tails:

  Error reading data from your Tails USB stick.
  Please visit https://tails.net/ioerror for troubleshooting.
  

• If you get the following notification while using Tails:

  Error Reading Data from Tails USB Stick
  
  The hardware of your USB stick is probably failing.
  
  We recommend that you reinstall Tails on a different USB stick
  and recover the data from your Persistent Storage as soon as possible.
  

These alerts are displayed when Tails detects a problem reading or writing to your USB stick. Most likely, these alerts mean that the hardware of your USB stick is failing and might completely break soon.

You should stop using this USB stick for Tails and install a new one.

• If you don't have a Persistent Storage on this USB stick, we recommend that you reinstall Tails on a new USB stick.

• If you have a Persistent Storage on this USB stick, we recommend that you stop using this Tails immediately, reinstall Tails on a new USB stick, and recover the data from your Persistent Storage as soon as possible.

  To do so, follow our instructions on recovering the Persistent Storage from a broken Tails.