How-To Geek

I have a Western Digital external hard drive (model WD3200B007 RGB) that I have a lot of data, mostly family pics and videos, on. Yesterday I went to open the drive and got the following message:

Disk in Drive F is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?

Obviously I did not reformat since I don't want to wipe off the data. I read in another post that sometimes you need to restart the drive, or PC or switch USB cables so I did all of that (on two different pc's) but it's still getting the same result.

I also ran the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows that was recommended to download in the other thread from http://support.wdc.com/product.....8;lang=en. I ran the quick and extended tests and both came back 'PASS'.

I am hoping I don't need to shell out a bunch of cash to restore the data so please help me out. While we're at it if anybody has a recommendation on how to back up my external hard drive so as not to lose everything please share.

Thanks in advance!

jorgstyle,

DO NOT do anything to that HD until you can try this. Go to HELP in XP and type in CHKDSK. Read all articles including the ones on the MS external links. If you feel comfortable and understand the CHKDSK switch parameters, then you probably will be able to fix the HD. Also if I remember correctly, there is some command line for repairing the drive MBR. I will search for that while you learn about CHKDSK. Also, do you have a Disk Imaging Backup Program such as Ghost, Etc., Etc., ? I WILL NOT give you Bad Information which might destroy your data. We are very careful here at HTG because we realize your personal HD data is extremely important. Post back.

Regards,
Rick P.

raphoenix - I looked into CHKDSK and although I wouldn't say I have a perfect understanding I played with it a bit. When I ran it in cmd this is the error I got on the drive:

the type of the file system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

I have no idea what that means.

Any other tips for how I can restore these files?

did you use the external drive with vista earlier?

It could be that Windows is just saying it's RAW because it can't read the partition structure for some reason like a problem with the MBR. There was a topic on that recently where someone said they used a program to fix the MBR and it was fixed. Not sure though if that would apply here as I don't know much about MBR problems.

Thanks for the replies everybody. I'm going to try the last ditch suggestions, cross my fingers, pray, light a candle, do a dance and hope it works. Otherwise I'm taking it to a data recovery place this weekend... any tips on where to go? This is all of our family pictures and videos from the past 3 years, so I'm very worried.

Any tips on how to triple back up my photos so this doesn't happen again?

K9 - if it is corrupted, am I totally screwed or is the data still there and I just can't access it?

I never used it on Vista.

@jorgstyle - the data is still there in your hard disk, but your OS is not able to access it because the boot sector of that partition is corrupted. This link may help you - http://www.ptdd.com/fixboot.htm

i seem to have the same problem, altho slightly different.

i have 1 500gb hard disk with 2 partitions c: and d:
c: was for my windows xp install and programs (50gb)
d: was for storage (450gb)

i put a fresh copy of windowns onto c:
formatted and copied my backed up files onto d:

rebooted my pc and d: (storage) now shows as d: (local disk) and when i try to get in it asks if i want to format it.
i sat for 4 hours waiting for it to format last night and today i get this.

as im a music producer i need all that stuff back urgently.

any help would be excellent.

@whs,

You are right.

farmerwardy's problem will never be noticed under this mess above.

How are you today / night ??

Rick P.