Windows 7: Formatting my external hard drive does not work.

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JohnHargrave

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When I turn on my computer, I am told that the external hard drive needs to be formatted before I can use it. I click OK and the drive is formatted in about 10 seconds. I can then copy data to the drive and I can read the data. The next time I turn on my computer, a panel opens and tells me that the external hard drive needs to be formatted before I can use it. When I click Cancel, another panel opens titled "Location is not available" and tells me that "The volume does not contain a recognized file system". However, in Device and Printers, the drive is correctly identified as a FreeAgent drive, and under the Hardware tab in Properties it says: "Device status: This device is working properly". This inability to access the external hard drive happens all the time. What is causing this problem and what is the solution? Incidentally, the external hard drive works perfectly with my laptop, my wife's XP PC and with my wife's iMac.
 
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tallywho

tallywho

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Sounds like drive has a logical error on it(hard drive could be going bad too) after you format it with windows, run a check disk on the external drive

Lets pretend when you plug it in it comes up as drive letter E:

You can run Check Disk from the command line or within other utilities. At a command prompt, you can test the integrity of the E drive by typing the following command:

chkdsk E:

To find and repair errors that are found in the E drive, use the following command:

chkdsk /f E:

Note that Check Disk can’t repair volumes that are in use. If the volume is in use, Check Disk displays a prompt that asks if you want to schedule the volume to be checked the next time you restart the system. Click Yes to schedule this.

If It finds an error/sector and fixes it try a couple restarts and see if that fixes your problem. If there are no errors and its still doing it, chances are its gone/going bad.

EDIT: Sorry didn't read the part where it works on others fine. (My bad)

Suggestion 2
Try booting in safe mode after you format It. If It doesn't prompt you then something loading at normal startup is probably causing the problem.

You might want to go to Startup tab in msconfig and uncheck the entries, one or a few at a time. Each time you uncheck something, exit msconfig and reboot. Or use Ccleaner

If the unchecked item(s) isn't causing the problem, be sure to re-check it (them) before unchecking something else. Repeat until you identify the offender. What to do once you identify the offender may depend on exactly what it is...

NOTE: If you plan to uncheck your antiviral software and/or firewall to test this, I strongly recommend you disconnect the network cable (while the power is off) so the system doen't connect to the internet without appropriate anti-malware protection.




 
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JohnHargrave

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JohnHargrave

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First, thanks for your incredibly fast response. After reading your reply I typed chkdsk H: with the following result:
"The type of the file system is NTFS
"The first NTFS boot sector is unreadable or corrupt.
"Reading second NTFS boot sector instead.
"Unable to determine volume version and state. CHKDSK aborted

This is better than usual because when I've run CHKDSK before, it has always said:
"Invalid parameter - /H:

It gets worse. I then attempted to format the drive, but received the message:
"Windows was unable to complete the format
And then:
"Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly.

It is. Now I've just tried plugging the drive into my laptop where it has worked in the past, but I'm told the drive is not formatted. Could be looking at a terminal situation here. The drive is about five years old.

My C:\ drive is only four or five months old. I've just run CHKDSK on that, and it looks completely healthy. Looks like the external hard drive is over.

Thanks again.
 
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tallywho

tallywho

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No problem, sorry about the drive :-( if you need help recovering files off of it there are some methods for doing this given its current state. One more thing you might try (mind you, the errors your getting usually mean its the HDD) is to take the HDD out of the external enclosure and plug it directly into the computer via power and a sata/ide ribbon cable. Sometimes the USB interface logic board on the external enclosure can go bad and not let windows initialize the drive properly. Usually a resistor/ voltage problem because they are cheaply made.
 
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JohnHargrave

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JohnHargrave

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There's no problem with the files on the EHD, they were suppsed to act as backups for files on the HDD, which I still have. You're remarks about the HDD are worrying. I possess nothing like the technical expertise necessary to carry out the actions that you advise. Seems as if a trip to the local store is needed, and the drive is only a few months old. Incidentally, out of interest I tried formatting the EHD while it's plugged in to the laptop, and it's going ahead, albeit very slowly. Could this be confirmation that the HDD is really dying as well? We shall certainly see.
 
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tallywho

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did you do a quick format or a full format? and yes laptops front-side-bus are notoriously slow for formatting disks. Is it usb 2.0? 3.0? but yes it sounds like the drive is bad. What EHD is it if you don't mind me asking, i.e. brand and model number?
 
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JohnHargrave

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The EHD is a Seagate FreeAgent. As for the model number: on the base there is the number: M18614. I downloaded Seagate Drive Detect to try to find more information, but it only gives these details about the EHD:
Model: FreeAgent Serial: 2HC015KJ Firmware: 0138

As for whether it is usb 2.0 or 3.0: One site says that 2.0 drives have a white plug and 3.0 drives have a blue plug. The EHD has a white plug. The site also says that 3.0 plugs have a USB symbol. The EHD has a USB symbol. Other than that, I haven't a clue.

As for formatting: When the PC told me that H:\ must be formatted, I clicked OK. The formatting by the PC took about 10 seconds, and the EHD was still unreadable. I tried to find out online how to do a full format, but with no luck. Even the Wikipedia article on MS-DOS commands does not give the syntax for performing a full format.

As I said, I began to format the EHD using my XP laptop (which I bought because Windows 7 has been deliberately designed to be incompatible with "legacy" software). The formatting took between one and two hours and was eventually completed.

I plugged the EHD into the PC and began copying folders from the PC to the EHD. Some folders were not copied because a message said that the folders were corrupted.

The copying came to an end and I checked the folders that had been reported as being corrupted. On the PC, those folders are intact and completely accessible. On the EHD they are described as being corrupted and unreadable.

And in addition, a number of files, nearly all photographs have vanished from the hard drive on my PC without involving the EHD at all. I'm beginning to think that I'm looking at two hard drives that are failing. The one on the PC as well as the EHD. ah heck.
 
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JohnHargrave

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The latest developments are as follows. When I try to open the FreeAgent EHD, sometimes I'm told that it's not accessible because it's corrupt. At other times I can open it, but when I look at image files, such as my vast collection of my photographs, the majority are completely corrupted although they're not corrupted on the PC's hard drive.

I tried to backup these image files to my wife's old Verbatim EHD. When I plugged it in I received a message asking if I wanted to scan and fix the Verbatim EHD. This was a message I frequently received with the FreeAgent EHD. I continued without scanning, copied my photographs from the PC to the Verbatim EHD and most of them are hopelessly corrupt.

I've looked at my wife's photographs on the Verbatim EHD that she's backed up from her PC and from her iMac and they are all perfect, not one of them is corrupted.

To my not very technical brain, this might look as if the problem lies with the PC and its hard drive and that I've probably lost my collection of photographs. Am I right?
 
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