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Posted

I've backed all the photos on to the portable hard drive to ensure they are safe as mu=y computer has been playing up. Now the Computer is saying that the Portable (Seagate) Harddrive needs formating, whats wrong.

 

Its Yellow And Black and Makes me 😬here

Posted

Have you used it before, or is this the first use.

 

Is it a USB drive ? If so, it should just be plug and play, without formatting ?

 

Have you tried restarting the computer with the drive attached to see if it recognises it ?

 

If it is a USB device, try it on another PC to see if the files are there.

 

7 related photos

 

Edited by - Stationary M25 Traveller on 29 Oct 2007 22:41:45

Posted

Yes to all of these, it says it need formatting but there's about 22GB of pictures on there, If it I try to defrag it its shows that there is something on there but if I click properties it shows it as empty

 

Its Yellow And Black and Makes me 😬here

Posted

OK, had this before, don't worry your files are still there. I fixed it by installing the disc in my PC and running FIXMBR

 

However this may be difficult for you. First thing you have to do is find out what kind of File Allocation Table (FAT) your drive is using, i.e. FAT32 or NTFS. Do this by right clicking on My Comuter select Manage, then go to Disk Management.

 

Once you kow what FAT you are using you can get all kinds of freeware tools that will undelete, copy your files or fix your hard disc. Try here for free tools

 

This one looks like a good option

Posted

Hi Thanks for the info

 

If I follow the Disk Management route it shows no file allocation is shown but if I click properties its say RAW *confused* . Its just come up with NTFS so I'll follow the website advice

 

Thanks

 

Its Yellow And Black and Makes me 😬here

Posted

I could be that the usb lead isn't supplying enough power. Are you using the same usb port as you wrote from? If so this is unlikely to be the problem. It is possible to get a usb lead for these drives that plugs one drive into two usb ports, thus providing twice the power.

 

Pooh

Posted

Yes RAW is a photo file type, but it is also a Hard Disc "state" See here

p.s. the software above is not free but the trial version will tell you if you can recover your partition

 

Pooh, I won't say it isn't the usb, but I would bet it is a corrupt MBR. This is a common problem that happens when for among other reasons when a PC crashes and a USB device is plugged in.

Posted

Is this a 2.5 inch drive, with no separate power supply? If so, I'd agree with Pooh - most likely thing is the device can't get enough power. Strictly speaking, a USB port should only provide a maximum of 100mA unless asked (via a data request) to supply more. Most devices ignore this and assume they can get the maximum (500mA, I think) straight away.

 

I've had this on a couple of portable drives. Try it in a different slot, and if you're using a USB hub (especially a non-powered one), don't. If possible, try it on someone else's computer. Remove any other USB devices that might be sucking up power.

 

Posted

Has its own power source and the free soft ware I've tried cant find the drive 🙆🏻

 

£75+vat to recover it then I need to buy a new drive and DVD writer

 

I wouldnt mind but id moved the photos to this drive as I was having issues with the other drive 🙆🏻 😔

 

 

 

Its Yellow And Black and Makes me 😬here

Posted

You will be able to recover the data for free using one of the tools in the previous link, just try a few of the free ones until you find one that works.

 

Once you have got your data off safely, you can simply go to XP Disk Management as described earlier, then delete the partition, re-install it and the hard drive will then work perfectly. THere is nothing wrong with the hardware, the boot sector code just got corrupted, that's all.

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