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Hard Drive Emergency!!

jaymackjaymack 5,199 Posts
edited November 2006 in Strut Central
i'm getting a message when i try to access my 500gb My Book that says "disc is not formatted, format now?" if you choose yes it says doing so will erase all data. if i choose no, nothing happens.am i fucked outta 300+ gigs of the past year, or is there something i can do????

  Comments

  • DjArcadianDjArcadian 3,630 Posts
    Yeah, probably. You can try freezing the drive. Sometimes that actually helps but only long enough to get your info on it. I did that once, get my info and then bought a new drive. Not sure if that's advisable with a laptop.
  • pjl2000xlpjl2000xl 1,795 Posts
    honestly try smacking it real hard. Sometimes the mechinism gets screwed up and a good wack might fix the drive.
  • OldschoolspinnaOldschoolspinna 311 Posts
    This may work.

    Take the drive out of its case or what have you, plug it into a box running windows.

    It may see it as a new mass storage device and let you see the files on it.

    If it works, transfer all your tunes off to another drive or to disk, and start over with the I-book.

    Worth a shot.
  • djsheepdjsheep 3,620 Posts
    It depends how the hard drive is formatted right?

    Doesn't it have to be FAT-32 to work on both PC and Mac?

    Whatever you do, don't format your hard drive - you will loose everything..

    Try using a disk rescuing utility like Norton Disk Doctor - after the computer starts to recognize the drive...

    If the data was important to you and you have no success, you can always take it to some company to rescue your data?? Good luck hommie, I've had that shit happen before and it's a nightmare. Make sure you invest in a good external hard drive and back up all your mp3raers

    peace.
  • Controller_7Controller_7 4,052 Posts
    It might be a good idea to buy a external hard drive shell. You can get a nice USB or firewire one for about $30 or less. It's just the shell, so once you buy it you can actually just keep buying internal hard drives (cheaper than external) and swap them in and out. Anyways, like mentioned before, it might be a good idea to swap it into an external shell and hook it up to another computer. You might be able to access it differently and grab all your files.

    Another thing you could try, if you are on a mac, is to use the disc utility option. I don't know if it will work, but you might be able to use the first aid software and try to see what's up with that drive. I've had hard drives just stop working on me and it usually turned out that whatever tells the computer where the start of the drive is gets moved around. That was a bad way of explaining it, but basically the computer sees the drive and it's missing the file that says "I'm a drive, here's how to use me" and it doesn't know what to do with it. First Aid will usually allow you to fix that without losing anything. I don't know if it works on external drives, but it's worth a shot.

    I can't remember exactly how to do it, but you probably need your start up cd. Check out this page for more info. Click on the First Aid link for more info about that too.

    http://kb.iu.edu/data/aoxp.html

    I hope you figure it out.

    Another thing to think of, my computer nerdy friend told me that when you delete files on a computer they don't actually go away. They basically get labeled with "this space is available" and it can be written over. On a mac if you do "Secure Empty Trash" I think it actually gets rid of the files for good, but from what my friend says, your files might actually be there for a long time before they get completely rewritten. I think that's why all those creepy dudes get busted for pictures of kids.
  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    run checkdisk

    plug the drive in, go to run in the start menu, type in "cmd", navigate to the drive letter (so if it's f, type in "f:"), and type in "chkdsk /r"

    let it sit for however long it will take and depending on how it got damaged it will recover none, some, or all of your data. taking the drive out of the enclosure and plugging it in directly to your computer is also another option but you should try that after running checkdisk.
  • djsheepdjsheep 3,620 Posts
    chkdsk wont work if the computer doesn't recognize the drive
  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    the computer is recognizing the drive. if not, it would not give him a prompt to format it.
  • pjl2000xlpjl2000xl 1,795 Posts
  • mattBmattB (FTB) Anywhere 673 Posts
    honestly try smacking it real hard. Sometimes the mechinism gets screwed up and a good wack might fix the drive.

    is this a joke? DON'T do this.
  • jaymackjaymack 5,199 Posts
    thanks for the suggestions guys. the disc check did not work. i guess ill prob have to buy a new shell and try that way,
    this sucks!
  • ariel_calmerariel_calmer 3,762 Posts
    Try diskwarrior as well before buying a new HD.
  • jaymackjaymack 5,199 Posts
    Try diskwarrior as well before buying a new HD.

    i keep forgetting to mention i use a pc. that program is for mac.
    thanks though.
  • ariel_calmerariel_calmer 3,762 Posts
    Try diskwarrior as well before buying a new HD.

    i keep forgetting to mention i use a pc. that program is for mac.
    thanks though.

    Oh, okay, then the answer is easy. Get a whole new computer

    Seriously tho Diskwarrior is mac only so yeah I guess norton is the way to go.
  • jaymackjaymack 5,199 Posts
    TOtally Awesome Update!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Partition Table Doctor 3.0

    took two seconds. a right click here, a couple clicks there, and there were all my mp3 raers!!!



    fuckin so happy right now.
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