Lost Formatting = Lost Data ??

[InOverMyHead]

I have an external LaCie Firewire hard drive (120GB) containing a lot of
data that was working fine with Win2000Pro. It had been formatted NTFS.
Somehow it now thinks it is not formatted and says it needs to be formatted.
HELP! I obviously don't want to re-format it as I think I would loose all
the data.

Is there some way to force it to read the data without re-formatting it? Can
it be reformatted NTFS without destroying the existing data? Is there any
way to recover the data? Any help you can give would be greatly
appreciated.

Some more background on this problem: I re-installed Win2000pro
on my computer at about the time the LaCie drive quit.
When I re-installed Win2000pro (with the external LaCie drive running)
it re-lettered my drives, making the LaCie drive the C Drive(?!) It was
neither a "Boot" nor a "System" disk according to W2K Disk Manager. It was
reported as "healthy". I didn't like my external (extra) drive as C Drive
so - - using the W2K disk manager I changed it to H Drive - - as it had
been previously. Fear & caution prevented me from changing my two internal
drives,
so I left them as D Drive (System) and E Drive (Boot). If my memory serves
me right, the LaCie drive worked okay AFTER I reinstalled Win2000pro. It
might also have worked properly AFTER I changed its drive letter, but I
can't be sure. Anyhow at some point it quit being accesable. I changed it
beck to C Drive with no improvement. It currently shows in W2K Disk Manager
as:

Disk 0
Basic
114.50GB
Online
C Drive
Healthy

When I try to explore it, it reports: "The system cannot find the device
specified."

When I right-click - then click Properties it struggles for 21 seconds
(during which time I can hear the LaCie drive working/searching and its blue
light flickering, indicating it is trying to access data), then displays the
properties page which reports Used/Free/Capacity as 0-0

Under Device Manager, Disk drives - it shows up as LaCie Group SA LaCie
1394 Disk drive LUN 0 IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device. Status shows as "This device
is working properly." And device is shown as enabled.

And here's another diagnostic step: I have a duel boot system, so I
disconnected the LaCie drive, then uninstalled it completely. I restarted my
computer - - but chose the "other" W2K system to boot from. (I have it for
troubleshooting purposes - it has no programs installed.) I plugged in the
LaCie drive - and was presented with this message:

"The disk in drive G is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"

I click on Yes. It reports capacity as Unknown and gives me three options
(FAT/FAT32/NTFS). It defaults to FAT. Not wanting to loose data, I choose
No. It exits but gives me this message:

"The disk in drive G cannot be formatted."

Well, it was formatted once - - and used to worked okay. Any suggestions or
help in
getting my data off this drive would be greatly appreciated.

Bob

 

[Eric Gisin]

| On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 13:10:53 -0700, InOverMyHead wrote:
|
| >"The disk in drive G cannot be formatted."
| >
| >Well, it was formatted once - - and used to worked okay. Any suggestions or
| >help in
| >getting my data off this drive would be greatly appreciated.
|
| By changing the C: to H:, you have corrupted the master boot record and/or
| the partition table (on this and possibly on the boot drive too) and/or the
| directory and/or the partition type byte. The data can be recovered by
| repairing these items, but it takes very high powered utilities to do this -
| utilities that can read and write single bytes on your HD. You also need to
| have truly expert knowledge of these matters.
|
your advice is wrong and dangerous. the partition table is ok. the boot sector
is gone, and can be restored from the backup at the end of the volume. any NT
expert knows this, but you don't.

| So, all things considered, I suggest you take the HD to a shop that knows
| what it's doing -- not every computer repair shop will be able to handle
| this, so ask around for recommendation.
|
most shops don't know. an mcse may know.

| You've discovered some new information, BTW: it's obvious from your
| experience that one should not reinstall W2K with an external, removable HD
| plugged in.
|
the only thing you got right.

 

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

Okay, so what's "direct repair" mean. Send it in to www.drivesavers.com for
example?

Bob

Get right in there and rewrite the bad bytes. Not a task for the faint of
heart - as I said, "you need to be an expert in these matters" (ie, hard
drive partition and file structure.) Eric G said my advice was dangerous.
Yes, indeed, -- that's why I _also_ said you should take your drive (maybe
the whole system) to someone who knows what's to be done and how to do it. I
don't know www.drivesavers.com so I can't advise you on whether to trust them
or not. Post a request for info on them; that may yield useful information..

Eric G also said you should be able to rewrite the MBR (master boot record)
from the backup that's placed at the end of the partition. I've never done
that, and Eric G trends to be rather, er, sparse with his advice on how to do
the things he says you should do. If in fact the only problem is a corrupted
MBR, that should make the partition readable again.

So, Eric - are you reading this? How do you restore the MBR from the second
copy?



--
Best Wishes,
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON
"Not that brains are everything --
you'll also need a skull to put them in." (Nancy Franklin, 1997)
<just one w and plain ca for correct address>