External hd formatted incorrectly

[rollydog]

I was using my WD passport on a mac and forgot to eject it properly. So now it is apparently broken. It shows up in windows explorer, but when I click on it there's a long pause and I am informed that it needs to be reformatted before I can use it. This isn't possible, because there's valuable data on there (my music library, around 300 GBs). I found a data restoration program that works, but there has to be an easier solution, maybe a program that allows me to access the hd and fix whatever is wrong with it from within. I'm not really sure about this stuff though.

Thanks

 

[dextermat]

Hi there not fun when it happens:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925196/en-us

you can try that but i think your hard drive might be in big trouble

you could also try those from western digital: but don't format cause you will lose information if any is left on HD.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1325&p_created=1109705966&p_sid=AtheNKUj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_srch=1&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjYzLDI2MyZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9bmVlZCB0byBiZSBmb3JtYXRlZA!!&p_li=&p_topview=1

or this

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/popup_adp.php?p_faqid=1164&p_created=1076022780&p_sid=AtheNKUj&p_lva=&p_li=&p_redirect=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjgsMjgmcF9wcm9kcz0wJnBfY2F0cz0wJnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfZXgmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1sb3N0IGRhdGE!

good luck

 

[treefrog07]

Sounds like you may have garbled the Master Boot Record. You could try MBRWizard to restore/rebuild your MBR.

 

[goldeknob]

I had a similar problem and I used Active Partition Recovery http://www.partition-recovery.com/ worked perfectly. I think it was free too. forgot for sure.