USB ext.drive suddenly requires format

A one-terabyte external USB drive, containing a great deal of data, has suddenly ceased to 'exist' and when plugged in, if access is attempted, there's a message: "X drive isn't formatted, do you want to format it now? "

There are a lot of similar reports on the net, so it's obviously not a rare occurrence. But fixes are scarce, non-existent actually.

I could go ahead and format the drive but the owner will be grief-stricken. Is there a WinBBS guru in the house who has a bright idea about this?

What I've tried so far:
Connect the drive by USB to both Vista and XP machines.
Connect the drive by SATA cables to both Vista and XP machines.
Checked the drive (as a SATA unit) under a DOS-booting app called Bootmaster. It couldn't see the drive.

One thing occurred to me; Is there a way to minimally format the unit, which might just give it a partition table or whatever is missing, without overwriting the mountains of valuable files?

 

Try 'testdisk' , be sure to read the How-To- Use first. Pay most attention to 'recover XP boot record'. Be sure to download the correct version for the OS, dos/Windows (XP)/linux. Just google for the program.

That error normally indicates that the primary volume boot record (VBR) is bad, and can be replaced by the backup VBR.

 

Thanks Arie, I'll check out the relevant tools, tho I have to say that recent experiences with disk maker's tools have been unrewarding. They were very helpful a few years back, but now they don't seem quite as effective.

TopFarmer, thanks. Testdisk sounds interesting; my guess was also a bad disk info, but I wasn't sure that a dedicated 'slave' type of disk (which is the way I'd describe an external USB drive) had the same sort of boot tracks as a regular disk.

 

There is no difference between internal/external hdds and there data/structure layout.

That being said, Vista can use a total different partition table layout on the new big(?) hdd's and can not be used by XP. The new hdd's do not use the old standard of 512bytes per sector. Have not done much research on it.

 

I see, thanks for that. Re this drive's partition\table structure, I finally managed to get a look at it, and like a lot of these units, it's FAT32. The problem with visibility was that the drive is SATA2 and the first PC had only a SATA1 motherboard. When I slaved it into a SATA2 computer, Bootmaster was able to spot the FAT32 structure. However, the prog also reported a "high error rate" so it's possible that there's some other problem.
I'm supposed to receive 'support' from the Bootmaster guy but that hasn't happened so I'll try Testdisk shortly.
Cheers

 

depending on your time you could install or run activly ubunto to copy over the data from the ext drive. This is what i did it took a while but i managed to save the data.

 

But the partition isn't visible in Windows. Can you explain how I'd do what you've suggested, please?

 

of course, if you download xubunto, burn it do a cd or dvd and then restart, go into your bios of press f8 to enter the boot menu and boot from cd. When xubunto starts you will have the option to either install it or run from the cd. Choose run from cd. Once started go to file (on top) system tools, file systems and see if your hdd's are selectable.

If they are then right click on the external drive and click open browser.

if they are not then your problem is beyond a failed file table record.

edit* just to explain my train of thought incase you or anyone else was wondering.

using xubunto can help when a disk becomes corrupted and can not be recognized by a windows os. This can happen with a fat32 partition/drive and even though windows can not "see" the partition and might even display the drive as being "raw" xubunto can read from many different file systems. Ifyou can manage to save the data you can then format over the ext. HDD in NTFS so that XP and Vista can read from the drive. However, this is only a free and relatively quick check for a possibility for recovering data. There are many applications out there that could copy the entire hard drive sector for sector, but they cost money.

 

Thanks ppg113, I'm downloading "xbuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso ", which I assume will be the right version to do this sort of disk-checking. So, fingers crossed

Cheers!

 

This is a shot in the dark pretty much, but ive managed to save data from 3 different drives using this method, one of which completely failed soon after.

Now, with your external hard drive connected in some fashion either thru the usb connection or internally in the computer, insert your disk into the cd tray, and then restart.

before you even see a post message start pressing f8 (if using vista) to select which media you want to boot from. Select your cd/dvd device that holds the xubunto disc. Once xubunto boots you will be given the option for language, and then "try xubunto ect.." will be highlighted already, if it is not, then select that option and press enter. Once this OS loads up, look top left hand corner and the option "Applications" should be clicked on which will present a drop down menu, go to System -> Remote File systems and click it. Then right click your external hard drive and select CONNECT and then right click again and select OPEN BROWSER. Repeat this for your other hard drive. (the one your OS is loaded on). At this point you should have two windows open, one from your external drive, and another pointing to your Vista drive. In the vista window go to a folder or make one to store the external's data to. I have used my desktop and created a folder titled "client data ". To copy over the data, all that you need to do is simply select the folder's or media and drag them over to the other hard drive's window hopefully to a seperate but findable folder.

If you Do not want to or can not use your OS hard drive then a USB media, or if you have more then one cd/dvd drive you can copy the data over to a jump drive/ burn to disc/s.


3 issues with this method come to mind however.

1. The external could be gone for good in which case data will be non-recoverable and will not show up with-in xubunto.

2. You could be unwilling or unable due to size constraints beadle to copy the data drive to drive.

3. if two, could also be unable to use USB media (again due to size constraints) or DVD media to copy all the media.

if you do however manage to save the media, you can then safely format the external to NTFS file system and then recopy the data back to the original external hard drive.
(in vista, not xubunto)

If you need a step cleared up, or run into trouble i will give you as much help as i can, so keep me posted.