ok, so I've posted in the past about a nearly identical problem, where my computer [laptop] stops recognizing the external harddrive. I bought a 300gig external, brand new to back up the stuff that was on the first external hdd, and then the new one, today, all of a sudden isn't working. When I say it isn't working, I mean that windows says it isn't formatted and do I want to format it. The old one quit showing up in windows, which makes recovery difficult. I have partition magic and some partition repair tools. I'm curious if I just reformat, will that solve these problems so that my pc won't just suddenly stop recognizing drives? PLEASE HELP!!! This is very frustrating as I'm a student and have all of my medical, tax, etc. records on these drives and need to recover the data as well as just have the **** machine work right. It was doing fine until today, and it has done almost the exact same thing in the past couple months which leads me to think that maybe it isn't the external drives, but maybe something with my laptop? Any thoughts, advice, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
should I just reformat to fix this???
- Thread starter emptymush
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STATus h2O
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Have you tried unplugging the drive, turning it off and plugging it back in?
junglemike
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If it's usb/firewire connection - just plug your drives to any other computer and see it they work. If they do, than see if you can see partition(s) there are access them. If you still can - come back to your problematic computer, plug the drives, and launch disk management utitlity (part of windows) [administrative tools->computer management->disk management]
next actions depends on what you see there.
next actions depends on what you see there.
Your USB port may be faulty. Not completely gone, but going in and out.
Also, the connectors from the drives may be faulty.
Basically, it could be many different things. Without it in front of me when it does it it is hard to tell.
Also, the connectors from the drives may be faulty.
Basically, it could be many different things. Without it in front of me when it does it it is hard to tell.
ok, I've tried plugging it into both my computer as well as my girlfriends. It shows it is connected in the maintenance area that can be reached via the control panel, however it won't display in "My Computer." When plugged into my girlfriends it says that the disk is not formatted and do I want to format it now? I have a lot of valuable data on there and I don't want to lose it. It was working fine until recently, and as my pc seems to be having trouble and likely needs to be reformatted, I do'nt want to lose all the data and software that I have on the external as that is where I keep my back up copies of stuff. Is there anyway, other than to reformat that might make the data accessible? Why might this keep happening to me? With three different external hdd's? I've included this image to show you what I am seeing when I used the disk management tool.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j275/emptymush/trubs-1.jpg
you will have to click on it to enlarge it enough for clarity, but i've tested it, and it works enough that I can read it fine.
Also, saying things like "if it were in front of me" are practically useless to me, as you aren't here, I need advice that I can use, such as what other posters have offered.
When I ran the disk management utility I was able to see one of the external hdd's though not the other. I guess as the one I can see is the newer one that I got to back up my data on, I guess that's good, but still, I don't want to hae to format it and then try to recover the data with data recovery tools. How can I just get it to work like it did a day or two ago? Arghh... PLEASE HELP!!!
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j275/emptymush/trubs-1.jpg
you will have to click on it to enlarge it enough for clarity, but i've tested it, and it works enough that I can read it fine.
Also, saying things like "if it were in front of me" are practically useless to me, as you aren't here, I need advice that I can use, such as what other posters have offered.
When I ran the disk management utility I was able to see one of the external hdd's though not the other. I guess as the one I can see is the newer one that I got to back up my data on, I guess that's good, but still, I don't want to hae to format it and then try to recover the data with data recovery tools. How can I just get it to work like it did a day or two ago? Arghh... PLEASE HELP!!!
talldude123
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Download drivers for that Hard Drive.
junglemike
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Judginf from your screenshot of disk management tool - everything is cool.
You have your 300gb external disk, 227gb of which is disk I:, and rest 52gb are unallocated.
Now if this disk I: doesnt' show up in your computer for some reason - go to start->run->I:
see what happens.
If your disk opens (as it would be ) - backup your important data fists, and then investigate the issue.
You might want not to waste the rest 52gb of data and create a second partition there, or make a first partition all disk size.
You have your 300gb external disk, 227gb of which is disk I:, and rest 52gb are unallocated.
Now if this disk I: doesnt' show up in your computer for some reason - go to start->run->I:
see what happens.
If your disk opens (as it would be ) - backup your important data fists, and then investigate the issue.
You might want not to waste the rest 52gb of data and create a second partition there, or make a first partition all disk size.
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