How can I fix my external hard drive that apparently needs reformatting?

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jpo

Reputable
Jun 30, 2015
1
0
4,510
Hi!
I have a 500GB Samsung external hard drive that I've had for a few years.
I've plugged it into my computer and it's showing up that the disk needs to be formatted.
I've tried the chkdsk :H/x and that's not worked (it said that it was RAW data and it couldn't basically do anything about it).
I've also gone into Control Panel - System - Hardware and uninstalled my hard drive via that and restarted the system and it STILL isn't working.
Please help!
 
Solution
D_Know_WD
Hi there jpo,

In case you don't really need the data on the drive, you can try what vaconcamp suggested. Just be careful to choose the right disk that needs to be cleaned. :D You can do the same thing if you go to Disk Management and reformat the drive.
In case you need the data on the drive though, I guess you will need to use some data recovery software. There are quite a lot of threads on that in the forum.

Here are some:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/280932-32-hard-drive-recovery
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/281213-32-recovering-files
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/278914-32-recover-drive-format

After you recover your data(or at least some of it), you can just test the drive in order to check out its health...
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vaconcamp

Honorable
Sep 1, 2012
113
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10,690
Try these steps to manually format the HDD:

1) Open CMD w/ Admin Priv

Type the following:

>"diskpart"

>"list disk"

>"select disk [number]"

>"clean"

>"create partition primary"

>"active"

>"format fs=ntfs quick"

>"exit" x2

See if that works.
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
6,633
3
35,960
Hi there jpo,

In case you don't really need the data on the drive, you can try what vaconcamp suggested. Just be careful to choose the right disk that needs to be cleaned. :D You can do the same thing if you go to Disk Management and reformat the drive.
In case you need the data on the drive though, I guess you will need to use some data recovery software. There are quite a lot of threads on that in the forum.

Here are some:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/280932-32-hard-drive-recovery
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/281213-32-recovering-files
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/278914-32-recover-drive-format

After you recover your data(or at least some of it), you can just test the drive in order to check out its health status: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Cheers,
D_Know_WD
 
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