My external Western Digital hard drive says it needs to be formatted. I used this drive to back up all my information on my previous Vista OS. I have connected it to a Vista PC and a XP PC and they both say it needs to be formatted. It worked PERFECTLY when I backed up all my information on my old Vista OS. What happened? I can't lose this data. It has been my past work for the last 3 years of school.
External HD claims to be not formatted.
- Thread starter CharlieJ
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I don't have solution for you, maybe a clue.
Do you have a WDxxEARS drive? There is a difference in the way they are formatted and I don't remember what it was. It has caused a lot of people problems.
I hope this helps.
Do you have a WDxxEARS drive? There is a difference in the way they are formatted and I don't remember what it was. It has caused a lot of people problems.
I hope this helps.
Originally Posted By: XS650
I don't have solution for you, maybe a clue.
Do you have a WDxxEARS drive? There is a difference in the way they are formatted and I don't remember what it was. It has caused a lot of people problems.
I hope this helps.
I do not think this is one of those drives. I do not see EARS anywhere on the box. I was formatted to NTFS.
I don't have solution for you, maybe a clue.
Do you have a WDxxEARS drive? There is a difference in the way they are formatted and I don't remember what it was. It has caused a lot of people problems.
I hope this helps.
I do not think this is one of those drives. I do not see EARS anywhere on the box. I was formatted to NTFS.
Might be a long shot, but here are two suggestions.
1. Did that drive come with any drivers? You could also check the WD website to see if they have any software packages for this drive available to download. I had a Maxtor external drive that I seem to recall had basically the same problem. I downloaded the whatever software/driver package, installed it and then no more problems with the drive. Very strange, as Windows has built in drivers that should set up the external automatically.
2. If the above fails, you could pull the drive from the enclose and try hooking it up directly to your motherboard via a ribbon cable or SATA cable, depending on the type of drive. This may help you determine where the problem might be and hopefully allow you to get your data off the drive if you need to.
1. Did that drive come with any drivers? You could also check the WD website to see if they have any software packages for this drive available to download. I had a Maxtor external drive that I seem to recall had basically the same problem. I downloaded the whatever software/driver package, installed it and then no more problems with the drive. Very strange, as Windows has built in drivers that should set up the external automatically.
2. If the above fails, you could pull the drive from the enclose and try hooking it up directly to your motherboard via a ribbon cable or SATA cable, depending on the type of drive. This may help you determine where the problem might be and hopefully allow you to get your data off the drive if you need to.
+1 on the Linux CD. I have a 500 gig Western Digital hard drive (the kind that you had to plug in to the wall for power) and had the same problem.
I was able to boot off of a Linux CD and copy my files to the hard drive in the computer. You too could copy them to another external usb hard drive, etc.
After I got everything copied, I then reformatted the drive in NTFS again.
Link below to System Rescue CD.
Rescue CD Link
If you are not sure of yourself you may want to get some help in doing this.
Hope that this helps!
I was able to boot off of a Linux CD and copy my files to the hard drive in the computer. You too could copy them to another external usb hard drive, etc.
After I got everything copied, I then reformatted the drive in NTFS again.
Link below to System Rescue CD.
Rescue CD Link
If you are not sure of yourself you may want to get some help in doing this.
Hope that this helps!
Originally Posted By: TXMXTruck
2. If the above fails, you could pull the drive from the enclose and try hooking it up directly to your motherboard via a ribbon cable or SATA cable, depending on the type of drive. This may help you determine where the problem might be and hopefully allow you to get your data off the drive if you need to.
+1. Also put the drive in the freezer overnight, if it's a minor mechanical misalignment issue.
2. If the above fails, you could pull the drive from the enclose and try hooking it up directly to your motherboard via a ribbon cable or SATA cable, depending on the type of drive. This may help you determine where the problem might be and hopefully allow you to get your data off the drive if you need to.
+1. Also put the drive in the freezer overnight, if it's a minor mechanical misalignment issue.
Originally Posted By: SrDriver
+1 on the Linux CD. I have a 500 gig Western Digital hard drive (the kind that you had to plug in to the wall for power) and had the same problem.
I was able to boot off of a Linux CD and copy my files to the hard drive in the computer. You too could copy them to another external usb hard drive, etc.
After I got everything copied, I then reformatted the drive in NTFS again.
Link below to System Rescue CD.
Rescue CD Link
If you are not sure of yourself you may want to get some help in doing this.
Hope that this helps!
After you get your data recovered you may want to consider using an off site storage service too like SkyDrive. It gives you 25 gigs of free storage space. If you have a lot of school papers, you can break them down by Subject, etc., and ZIP them up which will give you the ability to store more stuff.
Link to SkyDrive.
Link To Skydrive
There are other off site services available too but I like Skydrive for my needs as it is free.
+1 on the Linux CD. I have a 500 gig Western Digital hard drive (the kind that you had to plug in to the wall for power) and had the same problem.
I was able to boot off of a Linux CD and copy my files to the hard drive in the computer. You too could copy them to another external usb hard drive, etc.
After I got everything copied, I then reformatted the drive in NTFS again.
Link below to System Rescue CD.
Rescue CD Link
If you are not sure of yourself you may want to get some help in doing this.
Hope that this helps!
After you get your data recovered you may want to consider using an off site storage service too like SkyDrive. It gives you 25 gigs of free storage space. If you have a lot of school papers, you can break them down by Subject, etc., and ZIP them up which will give you the ability to store more stuff.
Link to SkyDrive.
Link To Skydrive
There are other off site services available too but I like Skydrive for my needs as it is free.
BobFout's suggestion is great. Try it.
For internal and external drives you can also try PartedMagic to see if the data can be read and copied to another drive. This is free although donations are warmly welcomed. Since 2008 I've used this software several times to access drives that appear to need formatting and to resize existing disk partitions. This is very good software.
http://partedmagic.com/
If it was an internal hard drive then I'd suggest trying SpinRite to see if the data can be saved. SpinRite is not free but it is worth the price. Since 1989 I've been using it and periodically upgrading it. But as far as I can tell it currently does not handle external drive units unless we open the cases and connect them directly to the motherboard. Still this is excellent software.
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
Similar to BobFout's suggestion, both of these programs boot and run their own mini operating systems.
For internal and external drives you can also try PartedMagic to see if the data can be read and copied to another drive. This is free although donations are warmly welcomed. Since 2008 I've used this software several times to access drives that appear to need formatting and to resize existing disk partitions. This is very good software.
http://partedmagic.com/
If it was an internal hard drive then I'd suggest trying SpinRite to see if the data can be saved. SpinRite is not free but it is worth the price. Since 1989 I've been using it and periodically upgrading it. But as far as I can tell it currently does not handle external drive units unless we open the cases and connect them directly to the motherboard. Still this is excellent software.
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
Similar to BobFout's suggestion, both of these programs boot and run their own mini operating systems.
Before doing *anything*, I would absolutely remove the drive from its external enclosure and try accessing it directly by hooking it up to the appropriate cable on your motherboard. At best, it was the cruddy little enclosure that was causing the trouble, and at worst you're right back where you started from.
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Before doing *anything*, I would absolutely remove the drive from its external enclosure and try accessing it directly by hooking it up to the appropriate cable on your motherboard. At best, it was the cruddy little enclosure that was causing the trouble, and at worst you're right back where you started from.
I second this. I had trouble with a WD external, although if I recall correctly, the problem was the drive was not seen by the machine. Googling showed that this was a common problem, caused by either the USB chipset used in the enclosure, the Windows USB drivers, or the combination.
Hooking the drive up directly to a desktop computer showed that it was fine, so I got another enclosure to connect it back to my laptop.
Before doing *anything*, I would absolutely remove the drive from its external enclosure and try accessing it directly by hooking it up to the appropriate cable on your motherboard. At best, it was the cruddy little enclosure that was causing the trouble, and at worst you're right back where you started from.
I second this. I had trouble with a WD external, although if I recall correctly, the problem was the drive was not seen by the machine. Googling showed that this was a common problem, caused by either the USB chipset used in the enclosure, the Windows USB drivers, or the combination.
Hooking the drive up directly to a desktop computer showed that it was fine, so I got another enclosure to connect it back to my laptop.
Yes, try a Live Linux CD and see if you can access the files on the drive.
If so, copy them over to your regular hard drive until you can get another external hard drive or reformat the one you have and see if it works?
If so, copy them over to your regular hard drive until you can get another external hard drive or reformat the one you have and see if it works?
If you can open the drive make sure the jumper didn't fall of the drive or isn't set wrong. Should be set to Single Drive, or Spare Jumper setting and not CSEL or SLAVE.
I have seen externals shipped with the wrong jumper settings that cause this. Simply fixing the jumper or putting the fallen jumper back on fixes the problem.
I have seen externals shipped with the wrong jumper settings that cause this. Simply fixing the jumper or putting the fallen jumper back on fixes the problem.
I have run the live Linux CD and nothing changed.
I opened the case and this is all I found. That metal box plugs into the bottom of the drive. The drive powers up normally.
The rescueCD link and parted magic are over my head and I do not know where to begin with them.
I do not know how something could go wrong when the drive worked fine with my old vista OS. I feel like I've been screwed.
I opened the case and this is all I found. That metal box plugs into the bottom of the drive. The drive powers up normally.
The rescueCD link and parted magic are over my head and I do not know where to begin with them.
I do not know how something could go wrong when the drive worked fine with my old vista OS. I feel like I've been screwed.
Originally Posted By: CharlieJ
I have run the live Linux CD and nothing changed.
With a Linux LiveCD, you may actually have to mount the drive from the software side of things. Linux doesn't tend to make second hard drives accessible by default. What LiveCD did you use? Some will show the drive, and then you have to right click to mount it.
If you don't mount it, check for a utility like Partition Editor. That will at least show you what, if anything, is going on with the device.
I have run the live Linux CD and nothing changed.
With a Linux LiveCD, you may actually have to mount the drive from the software side of things. Linux doesn't tend to make second hard drives accessible by default. What LiveCD did you use? Some will show the drive, and then you have to right click to mount it.
If you don't mount it, check for a utility like Partition Editor. That will at least show you what, if anything, is going on with the device.
Sounds like you need take the external hard drive to a computer shop and have them recover the data before you loose it if at all possible.
No jumpers on that sucker... Can you try plugging just the drive itself into your computer internally to see if maybe the external controller board could be the problem and all you need is a new enclosure?
I have a USB hard drive enclosure with a Seagate IDE drive installed and had the exact same problem. First time I used it all went well, a few days later I hooked it up and Win7 wanted to format. I checked it on my Mac and all was fine.
After playing (I use the term loosely - I was very stressed) what worked for me was to delete the USB driver in the Device Manager AND to plug the drive into the powered USB hub. It will not work if I plug it right into my box (doesn't even see it now).
I have no idea which of these two things are most important, or if it was a combination of the two, but at least I can use the drive.
I wish you the best - I know it is very frustrating.
After playing (I use the term loosely - I was very stressed) what worked for me was to delete the USB driver in the Device Manager AND to plug the drive into the powered USB hub. It will not work if I plug it right into my box (doesn't even see it now).
I have no idea which of these two things are most important, or if it was a combination of the two, but at least I can use the drive.
I wish you the best - I know it is very frustrating.
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