Formatting external harddrive after used with dish dvr

[mikeyjax]

I have a reformatted my external hard drive to work with dish network for recorded shows. I now want to put it back on Windows 7 computer to use as backup disk. I have not been able to find a way to reformat or adjust the disk so that I can use it with the computer. It does not recognize in Windows Explorer but the disk management does but cannot do anything but remove partition.

any help would be appreciated.

michael@michaelshurr.com

 

[kmiller96541]

Download Western Digital's diagnostic program. It's called Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows. I use it to test all hard drives, not just WD. It has an option to write zeros to the hard drive. It WILL wipe anything off and make it look new. Then you can create new partitions or just clean install from the Windows 7 CD. Try the option to do the begining and the end of the drive 1st. If not, do the whole drive.

 

[mikeyjax]

Thank You. I will work on this tomorrow and let you know how I made out.

 

[mcclure359]

I have the same problem, having formated the drive for the DVR and now trying to place it back on the PC. But I have a twist to this. Once I get the external hard drive recognized on the PC I need to try and recove any PC files which were there before that were not overwritten. Would I still be able to do this with the fix given?

 

[timstewarttim]

Download Western Digital's diagnostic program. It's called Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows. I use it to test all hard drives, not just WD. It has an option to write zeros to the hard drive. It WILL wipe anything off and make it look new. Then you can create new partitions or just clean install from the Windows 7 CD. Try the option to do the begining and the end of the drive 1st. If not, do the whole drive.

Thank you! That allowed my external hard drive to be visible to Disk Management, so I could initialize and format it.

 

[kamicaz01dz]

go to : storage > disk management
you will see 3 thing :

Disk 0 basic

Disk 1 basic : 1.00 GB Healthy (Primary Partition) || 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)

CD-ROM


now go where it say Disk 1 basic ,right click { 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)} than click delete volume

a warning message appear;
the selected partition was not created by windows and might contain data recognized by other operation system.
do you want to delete this partition ?

click yes
now it change the name from primary partition to Unallocated
right click to unallocated click : new simple volume click next >than next > than next > than finish > wait formatting .

unplug you hard drive and try it >than have nice day

 

[Roger Girouard]

Your pc does not recognize your drive due to a different format. Very easy way to repair -
Go to Western Digital Site
Select Downloads
Select your drive by model number
Make sure your drive is connected to the PC
Select "Quick format the drive"
Viola - your drive will be useable.
Note: any data on the drive will be destroyed.

 

[acerpacer]

I had similar problem after using my WD HDD as DVR with LG smart TV. I followed kamicaz01dz's suggestion as below :

go to : storage > disk management
you will see 3 thing :

Disk 0 basic

Disk 1 basic : 1.00 GB Healthy (Primary Partition) || 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)

CD-ROM


now go where it say Disk 1 basic ,right click { 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)} than click delete volume

a warning message appear;
the selected partition was not created by windows and might contain data recognized by other operation system.
do you want to delete this partition ?

click yes
now it change the name from primary partition to Unallocated
right click to unallocated click : new simple volume click next >than next > than next > than finish > wait formatting .

unplug you hard drive and try it >than have nice day

and Voila! It worked perfectly. Thanks kamicaz01dz!

 

[thanksforhelping]

I had similar problem after using my WD HDD as DVR with LG smart TV. I followed kamicaz01dz's suggestion as below :

go to : storage > disk management
you will see 3 thing :

Disk 0 basic

Disk 1 basic : 1.00 GB Healthy (Primary Partition) || 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)

CD-ROM


now go where it say Disk 1 basic ,right click { 467.76 GB health(Primary Partition)} than click delete volume

a warning message appear;
the selected partition was not created by windows and might contain data recognized by other operation system.
do you want to delete this partition ?

click yes
now it change the name from primary partition to Unallocated
right click to unallocated click : new simple volume click next >than next > than next > than finish > wait formatting .

unplug you hard drive and try it >than have nice day

and Voila! It worked perfectly. Thanks kamicaz01dz!

Thanks very much AcerPacer and esp kamicaz01dz! I did this on a calvary drive after using it as an external DVR dish drive. Your instructions were perfect, great results. Thanks again

 

[JasonCraig_]

Download Western Digital's diagnostic program. It's called Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows. I use it to test all hard drives, not just WD. It has an option to write zeros to the hard drive. It WILL wipe anything off and make it look new. Then you can create new partitions or just clean install from the Windows 7 CD. Try the option to do the begining and the end of the drive 1st. If not, do the whole drive.

This was working for me but before it could finish (whole drive option) my laptop powered off without me knowing, now the drive isnt recognized in Data Lifeguard or anywhere else. Any ideas???