Hard drive problems

[whatzcrackn]

I load my CPU today and the external drive says "This drive is not Formated".  How do I correct that problem?



1. scandisc.............. no

2 restore.....................no

3.  three different CPU's....................no



Help plz!!!!! 

[Fozzy The Bear]

I load my CPU today and the external drive says "This drive is not Formated".  How do I correct that problem?

Sorry... be more specific.... What do you mean by "I load my CPU today" ??

What have you changed in your system?? Is this a new external hard drive?? what happened?? What CPU are you talking about.

We can't help you until we know what it is that is wrong IN DETAIL.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Thenasty]

I load my CPU today and the external drive says "This drive is not Formated".  How do I correct that problem?

Help plz!!!!! 

everytime you buy a NEW DRIVE, you must FORMAT IT. Goto the CONTROL PANEL, Performance and Maintenance, ADmistrative Tools.

If you see a DRIVE LETTER under MY COMPUTER, you can just RIGHT CLICK and FORMAT AWAY.

[Fozzy The Bear]

I load my CPU today and the external drive says "This drive is not Formated".  How do I correct that problem?

Help plz!!!!! 

everytime you buy a NEW DRIVE, you must FORMAT IT. Goto the CONTROL PANEL, Performance and Maintenance, ADmistrative Tools.

If you see a DRIVE LETTER under MY COMPUTER, you can just RIGHT CLICK and FORMAT AWAY.

I'm not sure that this is a new drive he's talking about..... If he formats a drive that he already has he's going to lose everything that was on it.

I'm not sure why he's rattling on about a CPU and why he's trying different ones if it's a drive problem. He needs to explain this a bit better otherwise we could end up telling him entirely the wrong thing and destroying any data he may have.

IF it is a new drive, and it doesn't show up with a drive letter (Under Win XP) then you will also need to initialise the drive before you format it.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[whatzcrackn]

I have had the Hard drive for about six months, collecting the files I needed!!  Well when I got home today, the famous thinkging glass was displayed and would  not do anything for abut 15 mins.  So I pushed the power button and reset the CPU.  When it reset it, the external hard drive did not show any of the files, it said I needed to reformat it.  It is a 160 gig drive and only 2 gigs left before it was full.

[gonzo90017]

Does it appear in the bios?

[JackTucky]

Good news!  This drive isn't broke, it just needs new magnetic meda, new heads, and a format!  All of these things are consumable parts. 

congrats!   

=J

[whatzcrackn]

Good news!  This drive isn't broke, it just needs new magnetic meda, new heads, and a format!  All of these things are consumable parts. 

congrats!   

=J

LOL, I nee dthe data tho! 

[whatzcrackn]

Does it appear in the bios?

Como Say What?  It will appear when I goto My Computer, but says '0' when it is a 160 gig drive with about 158 gig worth a needed stuff!!!

[NickG]

seems like you lost the partition info.
You may need to try some "disk recovery", "disk rescue", or "data recovery" software I tried  some free ones and got my data back with one of them.  Can't remember the name...

[FrizzleFried]

...have you met that famous computer expert BEN DOVER?

You have now.  You're screwed.

[SavannahLion]

Depending on why the drive is behaving like that, there's a good chance you can recover the data off of it.

However, depending on the value of the data vs the amount of effort and time you want to put into saving the data, it's sometimes better to get a new drive and re-obtain the data from wherever you got it.

If you're OK with drive recovery, you need to determine whether the failure is due to hardware or some glitch on the software side or something truly annoying like virii trouncing you. Recovery varies from reason to reason and to discover the correct recovery method requires research... lots of it.

Whatever path you take, don't try to save any more data to the drive or format it. it'll make problems worse. If you try to recover the data, no matter what, have a second drive on hand to transfer the data as soon as it's retrievable. Don't "revive" the drive and go back to using it like before, that's an open invitation to a psychotic break down.

Which reminds me, I should update my toolset. Tried to recover a POS Compaq a couple of months ago but I didn't have the appropriate software to even see the damn thing. Damn legacy crap.

[lcddream]

connect it to a windows xp machine and  in the command prompt run:

chkdsk <your drive letter>: /f

then run

chkdsk <your drive letter>: /r

if you already tried this then sorry can't help.

only other thing to try is data recovery software

[whatzcrackn]

Any suggestions on a program??

[SavannahLion]

If the drive is being used on a Windows computer, then start with lcddream's advice.

No offense to you. I realized last night that if you were using Linux or Apple, you wouldn't be here asking that question.

[gonzo90017]

Did you Try system restore?

[whatzcrackn]

Did you Try system restore?

Yelp, and it says , "F drive" is not going to be restored becasue it was not plugged in or on.  And it is plugged in.

[ringram]

Format the drive, and restore the data from you backup. You have a backup, right?

[zaphod]

Can you pop the drive from within the external case and plug it into your PC itself, as a slave?  There might be a chance the external case's controller has gone out and the data is fine.  I'd want to eliminate the case as being the problem before doing something drastic.

[whatzcrackn]

Format the drive, and restore the data from you backup. You have a backup, right?

times like this 

[whatzcrackn]

Can you pop the drive from within the external case and plug it into your PC itself, as a slave?  There might be a chance the external case's controller has gone out and the data is fine.  I'd want to eliminate the case as being the problem before doing something drastic.

Okay I have dont that and still get the format thing.

I ran a recovery program and it said F: drive has a "bad parameter"

[Tiger-Heli]

You might try to get a copy of SpinRite and see if that helps.

[_) (V) (-)]

Have you got another computer you can plug the external drive into?
See if it works in there, if not I'd try removing it from the case and plugging it in directly. 

[whatzcrackn]

Yeah another PC and laptop and no go in them either.  I used a program called PC investigator and it shows the files but the F: drive is still not useable.  This claims it will copy the files to another location, we will see.  I am off to CC to buy another external drive.

Thx for the help everyone, pt II in a few hours and plz keep the suggestions coming!!! 

[davieboynj]

go burn off a slax disc.  i've used it several times in situations somwhat simailar to this.  if the drive is still functioning at all, you'll be able to see them with this. 

http://www.slax.org/download.php

once you have the disc made, you can boot off of it and burn your files to DVD or CD.  follow the instructions to load slax into memory so that you can remove the boot disc and use the drive for burning. 

I wouldn't use spinrite up until the bitter end.  It's a great program, but only when all other options have been exhausted.  you'll definitely want to run it before you put your faith in this drive again. 

[davieboynj]

(note:  i am making the assumption that this is a hardware failure rather than a virus or rogue program)

one more thing...  is this appears to be a rather sudden failure (hourglass), have you tried just taking the hard drive out and let it think about what it's done?  I've found from time to time that they'll behave for a little while if you give them some rest. 

and was your smartdrive option set on?  failures like this are what smartdrive excels at catching. 

[Tiger-Heli]

How does Slax compare to Knoppix (same thing, same idea, or totally different)?

[davieboynj]

kinda same, but the whole point to slax is that it's tiny.  small enough to fit on a mini cd, and load into just about any memory size, then free up the cd drive for burning.

also, slax is prettier than just about anything out there, although it's missing a lot of the huge programs. 

[SavannahLion]

go burn off a slax disc.  i've used it several times in situations somwhat simailar to this.  if the drive is still functioning at all, you'll be able to see them with this. 

http://www.slax.org/download.php

Nice, that one went under my radar. So many damn distros and no time to track them all.

I wouldn't use spinrite up until the bitter end.  It's a great program, but only when all other options have been exhausted.  you'll definitely want to run it before you put your faith in this drive again. 

Ditto. Don't bother with Spinrite unless you can locate a buddy who can loan you a copy and as a last resort.

Spinrite is very good at what it can do, but the way Gibson markets Spinrite, himself and his other programs, it's just better to stay away from GRC entirely unless you absolutely need to use one of his tools as a last resort. Take it from an ex-follower. Gibson is not everything he says he is, his words are not gospel, and his programs are not the end-all-cure-all he makes them out to be. I actually believed that ---uvula--- when he wrote that XP Raw Sockets would cause the collapse of the internet, cuase mass hysteria and force dogs and cats to live together. Now, I use everything Gibson says would end the internet, every day. The internet is still here.

Gibson is full of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, no point in paying for anything to support his cause.

[lcddream]

If all else fails you can try performing a quick format on the disk which I believe won't destroy all your data just make it "invisible".

Then you can attempt using data recovery software to get the files back.

Worth a shot if you are out of options.

[Fozzy The Bear]

If all else fails you can try performing a quick format on the disk which I believe won't destroy all your data just make it "invisible".

Then you can attempt using data recovery software to get the files back.

Worth a shot if you are out of options.

That would be a very very very last resort. Because even a quick format can destroy data. It can certainly destroy file names.

His best bet right now is to go with exactly the route he's going using PC Investigator. If that can see the files and is able to copy them to his new drive then he's saved the situation.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[SavannahLion]

If all else fails you can try performing a quick format on the disk which I believe won't destroy all your data just make it "invisible".

Then you can attempt using data recovery software to get the files back.

Holy crap, no. I did something similar by rebuilding the allocation table of a 30GB drive once. It's like quick formating the drive, but there's a better chance to recover the file names. Since I couldn't recover all of the names, I had to scan the drive and recover the files... every single damn file that have ever been created on the drive since dot. I spent months creating dozens of scripts to sift through and recover the orphans.

Imagine looking at 40 different versions of the same image you've worked on for months trying to figure out which one is the latest iteration worth keeping. Imagine doing that with every single file, school reports, schematics, CODE!!    I must've revisited every porn site that was ever stored in the cache.

I don't want to imagine trying to sort through 150+GB of data unless there was a  load of money at stake.

[lcddream]

i said if all else fails. i would certainly try it, if i had data that was valuable to me on the drive in question, and NO other options worked,and if of course professional help was out of the question.

sorry if i understated myself.

[patrickmaher]

Good Ideas

seems like you lost the partition info.
You may need to try some "disk recovery", "disk rescue", or "data

recovery" software I tried  some free ones and got my data back with one

of them.  Can't remember the name...

Can you pop the drive from within the external case and plug it into your PC itself, as a slave?  There might be a chance the external case's controller has gone out and the data is fine.  I'd want to eliminate the case as being the problem before doing something drastic.

This could be a damaged file system, a failing hard drive, or a failing controller on the external case.

It sounds like you have already removed the drive from the external casing and hooked it up internally.
Then you want to use data recovery software to scan the drive and copy all found data. If PC investigator doesn't work you can try these:
Get Data Back http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm
Ontrack EasyRecovery http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoverydatarecovery/

You can select all data found by the recovery software and copy everything, but if the hard drive is failing you should decide which data is most important and copy it first. You can usually save your recovery state at each step so you wont have to rescan the whole drive if something goes wrong.

After you have recovered the data, if you intend to use the drive again you should download the diagnostic tool from the hard drive manufacturers website and do a full test.

If it is data you can't afford to lose you should have a professional do this for you.



Bad Ideas

connect it to a windows xp machine and  in the command prompt run:

chkdsk <your drive letter>: /f

then run

chkdsk <your drive letter>: /r

if you already tried this then sorry can't help.

only other thing to try is data recovery software

In your situation I would not use scandisk until after using recovery software to backup your data. You can't be sure it is a file system problem, if you run scandisk on a failing hard drive you will make things much worse.
It is possible that you got the hourglass because of a failing controller or hard drive and if Windows was unable to complete communication with the drive it may have marked it as a dirty drive. When you rebooted the PC it is possible that Windows saw the drive marked as dirty which would cause it to run the automatic scandisk during bootup. If this is the case you would have seen the progress of the scan during boot up. If Windows ran this automatic scandisk, it is possible it caused further problems (such as the "This drive is not Formated" message).

If all else fails you can try performing a quick format on the disk which I believe won't destroy all your data just make it "invisible".

Then you can attempt using data recovery software to get the files back.

Worth a shot if you are out of options.

Doing a quick format wont help the situation. If the recovery software is unable to find your data, doing a quick format is not going to help it to find it.

[RayB]

I know of a service that will recover the entire drive for $500. 

[tikbalang]

it may just be a loose ide cable.

[turbo6]

I had a 160 gig drive crap out about a year ago... I couldn't recover the data til I reformatted then used the (Runtime Software) Get Data Back program, while I don't think I recovered everything from the drive... I am sure I recovered at least 80-90% of the data. As for the specifics, it was a year ago so its kinda hard to remember all the steps and such I used to do it. I know I used software from the drive manufacturer to do some but the Get Data Back program worked really well (IMHO) to recover the data. Before you start going at the "bad" drive make sure you have another drive with which to back up your recovered data to... because you may only get one shot at doing so.

I'm sure some of the other members here could help you better than I, but just wanted to share my experience with you and others. I realize its probably not much help but hopefully it will give you some hope of recovering your data.   

Good luck...   

[whatzcrackn]

I know of a service that will recover the entire drive for $500. 

I am all over it! When shall I bend over? 

 

[Fozzy The Bear]

I know of a service that will recover the entire drive for $500. 

I am all over it! When shall I bend over? 

 

Did buying a new drive and getting PC Investigator to copy the files work for you?  It'd be useful to know??

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[whatzcrackn]

Yes and no.

I was able to copy some of the files over.  SOme of the files showed up as .wtmp ( ) .  Not sure of that format?  And if I copied some zip/rar files over to the new drive, when I open them it would say 'error or corrupt file' 

So I went ahead and reformatted the drive.  It works and when I run PC Investigator, I am still able to see the lost files but still the same promblems.

I am at a stand still here