'This Drive Must Be Formatted'? brand new toshiba art 1tb just stoped working?!

[scotlass]

Hi

 

I was copying some movies and photos onto my new toshiba art 4 1tb external hard drive this afternoon when it suddenly poped up that the drive needed to be formatted to use. Prior to this message i had no problems with the drive and only got it at christmas and has hardly been used and stored securly in a new case i bought specificly to protect it. I have not formatted the drive as i hope to at the very least be able to somehow recover the photos as foolishly i though they would be safe on a new drive :( and i dont have them saved anywhere else. Any help would be much appreciated. I am running windows vista home premium on my laptop and my old external hard drive still works without any problems, i have also tried my toshiba on another laptop and the university library computers which both run windows 7 with no luck either.

 

I hope someone can help me!! any advice would be much appreciated and i forever promise to back up my photos in more than one location!!

 

scotlass :P

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS.

 

Plug the drive in to the USB port

 

Start > type in .......diskmgmt.msc .............ENTER

Does the drive show up there?

 

Can you take the drive out of the enclosure ( they are usually accessible )

It may not be the drive - it could be the enclosure itself that is the problem.

[Armageddon]

Am gonna take a guess when you get into disk management the drive will be there and in the RAW file format , if it is all is not lost what I'd suggest is running a Linux distro from a live cd plug in the drive remove all data then reformat. ( I had the same problem yesterday )

[scotlass]

 

1. Start > type in .......diskmgmt.msc .............ENTER

Does the drive show up there?

 

2. Can you take the drive out of the enclosure ( they are usually accessible )

It may not be the drive - it could be the enclosure itself that is the problem.

 

Hey thanks for the reply, i did the disk managment thing and it appears as (G:) [it origionaly automaticly came up with toshiba blah blah] layout = simple, type = baisc, file system = raw, status = healthy (primary partition), free space = 100% [while it was no where near full there must have been about 50GB on the drive and i have not formatted it]. The enclosure is like an ipod and there is no obvious way in which i could open it, no screws no clips or even any seems?

[scotlass]

Am gonna take a guess when you get into disk management the drive will be there and in the RAW file format , if it is all is not lost what I'd suggest is running a Linux distro from a live cd plug in the drive remove all data then reformat. ( I had the same problem yesterday )

 

Thanks for the reply, yeah your right disk managment says raw. I have no idea how to do what your suggesting though, not amazing with computers so any instructions on how to do this would be much appreciated.

[Armageddon]

Thanks for the reply, yeah your right disk managment says raw. I have no idea how to do what your suggesting though, not amazing with computers so any instructions on how to do this would be much appreciated.

 

Hi again personally i'd suggest linux mint or zoriun os you can google there websites and download the operating system then burn to a dvd then boot up from that dvd (live) this wont effect your windows in anyway , then plug in the usb drive and move your data to your harddrive before reformatting any problems get back to us , and zorin os looks very much like windows so its easy to use

[KenB]

EDIT

Armageddon - sorry - our posts crossed.

 

Hi,

 

I am going to leave the fine detail to Armageddon as he has recently used this and I am not too familiar with Ubuntu.

 

You can download Ubuntu from here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

 

Click on the big button. I would select "Run" after the download rather than the option to "Save".

You need to burn it to a CD.

When you run it ( you may wish to wait for Armageddon ) you may get prompted to Install / Run from CD ( or similar )

You do not want to install it.

You need to run it from a CD.

 

This is a big download and may take some time to complete.

 

You will need to have a CD ( 700MB ) in the drive ready.

 

You will get a box on screen after the download > simply click on "Start" in the small square in the middle to start the burn process.

 

Let us know when you have Ubuntu on a CD and hopefully Armageddon can talk you through the rest of the process.

[Bluesplayer.]

In addition to all of the above - check.

How to use Linux live Cd to backup files from a dead Pc

 

I have used this method on two occasions and was able to see and save all needed data.

[scotlass]

EDIT

Armageddon - sorry - our posts crossed.

 

Hi,

 

I am going to leave the fine detail to Armageddon as he has recently used this and I am not too familiar with Ubuntu.

 

You can download Ubuntu from here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

 

Click on the big button. I would select "Run" after the download rather than the option to "Save".

You need to burn it to a CD.

When you run it ( you may wish to wait for Armageddon ) you may get prompted to Install / Run from CD ( or similar )

You do not want to install it.

You need to run it from a CD.

 

This is a big download and may take some time to complete.

 

You will need to have a CD ( 700MB ) in the drive ready.

 

You will get a box on screen after the download > simply click on "Start" in the small square in the middle to start the burn process.

 

Let us know when you have Ubuntu on a CD and hopefully Armageddon can talk you through the rest of the process.

 

Hey, i think i have successfully burnt ubuntu onto a cd, whats next?

[Armageddon]

Hey, i think i have successfully burnt ubuntu onto a cd, whats next?

 

ok do you know how to set your pc to boot from cd/dvd ?

[scotlass]

ok do you know how to set your pc to boot from cd/dvd ?

 

hey, nope not at all.. never done anything like that before. i have 2 laptops one on vista which i got from my university and another which used to be vista but my uncle put windows 7 onto it, preferbly i would like to use that one as there is nothing on it too loose where as if i mess up my uni one i think i will void the warranty. any help will me much appreciated. thanks :P

[KenB]

Hi,

 

The Operating System doesn't matter. You select the laptop that you want to use.

 

To access the BIOS you will need to switch on and constantly tap DEL ( it may be F2 - it varies ) about once per second.

You will get a prompt on screen usually bottom left that will say ......."To enter Setup press **"

This will tell you which key to press to get into the BIOS.

 

Once there you move around using the arrow keys.

 

You are looking for Boot Order / Boot Sequence or similar.

It may be under "Advanced BIOS Features" - look around until you find it. (there are a wide variety of BIOS layouts)

 

It may look a little like this:

 

http://e.blog.xuite.net/e/e/e/8/17011837/blog_731119/txt/24137924/5.jpg

 

If the CDROM is NOT listed as the first boot device then you need to move it up the list.

You will get a prompt on screen how to do this - it is usually done with the + or - key.

 

If it is already first in the boot order you don't need to do anything at all.

 

If you do need to make changes then remember to Save and Exit ( usually F10 .....again it will tell you on screen )

 

Please do not make any other changes.

[scotlass]

Hi,

 

The Operating System doesn't matter. You select the laptop that you want to use.

 

To access the BIOS you will need to switch on and constantly tap DEL ( it may be F2 - it varies ) about once per second.

You will get a prompt on screen usually bottom left that will say ......."To enter Setup press **"

This will tell you which key to press to get into the BIOS.

 

Once there you move around using the arrow keys.

 

You are looking for Boot Order / Boot Sequence or similar.

It may be under "Advanced BIOS Features" - look around until you find it. (there are a wide variety of BIOS layouts)

 

It may look a little like this:

 

http://e.blog.xuite.net/e/e/e/8/17011837/blog_731119/txt/24137924/5.jpg

 

If the CDROM is NOT listed as the first boot device then you need to move it up the list.

You will get a prompt on screen how to do this - it is usually done with the + or - key.

 

If it is already first in the boot order you don't need to do anything at all.

 

If you do need to make changes then remember to Save and Exit ( usually F10 .....again it will tell you on screen )

 

Please do not make any other changes.

 

Hey, iv done that, it had hard disk first but i moved that down and cd drive is now first. Is there anything i need to know before inserting the cd and restarting the computer? or do i just put the disk in and hope for the best?

[Armageddon]

Hey, iv done that, it had hard disk first but i moved that down and cd drive is now first. Is there anything i need to know before inserting the cd and restarting the computer? or do i just put the disk in and hope for the best?

 

Hi again all you have to do is boot from that disk and wait when it comes up try or install ubuntu click on the try this will run ubuntu in "live" mode when its up and running plug in your drive wait for it to be recognised to access your files , when you have done that and removed what you need , unplug your drive press the laptop power button once this will shut ubuntu down remove the cd when it tells you and restart your laptop boot back into windows plug in your drive go back to disk management and reformat your drive

[Bluesplayer.]

Once you have Ubuntu running from the Cd.

Make sure that when you see Ubuntu on the screen you Do not click Install.

As said above - click on Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer

 

Then follow suggesions here.

How to use Linux live Cd to backup files from a dead Pc

Edited January 29, 2012 by Bluesplayer.

[Plastic Nev]

I will also add, to give the Ubuntu time to load from the disk, it will not be anything like as quick as Windows is because it is coming from the disk, it can be as much as five minutes or even longer depending on the speed and memory the laptop has. So please be patient.

 

Nev.

[scotlass]

Hey,

 

Thank you everyone for all the help i have managed to save my photos :P I did run into a spot of bother though as i first tried to run ubuntu on my dell laptop but it wouldnt work :s it looked like it was about to work then the screen just went black and multi coloured stripes appeared? i then plucked up the courage to try it on my uni computer which doesnt appear to have a brand and it worked first time on that, any ideas why it wont work on my dell (inspiron 1501, roughly 2006/07 model) I was hoping to get all my data off the drive but my folders containing software and music appear empity? do i just have to accept that they are lost or is there something i can do to retrieve them?

[Armageddon]

Hi again am glad you got your photos back , and as far as Ubuntu not running on your Dell am guessing it was your graphics I have encountered same problems , now as to getting the rest back after you have formatted the drive you could try a program like http://www.piriform.com/recuva and run that on deep scan it may or may not work and will take hours but its worth a shot

[KenB]

my folders containing software and music appear empity

Are you absolutely sure that the folders you were looking at were the Windows ones and not the Ubuntu ones ?

[scotlass]

Hi again am glad you got your photos back , and as far as Ubuntu not running on your Dell am guessing it was your graphics I have encountered same problems , now as to getting the rest back after you have formatted the drive you could try a program like http://www.piriform.com/recuva and run that on deep scan it may or may not work and will take hours but its worth a shot

 

Thanks again i will get it formatted and try that program, when you say hours is it something i should run overnight?

[scotlass]

Are you absolutely sure that the folders you were looking at were the Windows ones and not the Ubuntu ones ?

 

yeah, they were the folders i had created on my external before it broke on me :(

[Armageddon]

You could run Recuva overnight yes due to the size of your drive , as I said earlier it may not recover anything but I have used it on many occasions and always managed to recover something , just make sure you recover any files to the laptop hard drive you can always move them back

[JedTheFed]

Seems like a lot of work. I would try going to the command prompt and typing

 

CHKDSK G: /F

 

Works for me :)

 

Gary

[KenB]

This tread is 4 years old Gary - I doubt that the OP will be following it now.

 

Welcome to ExTS :)