My 2nd harddrive suddenly "needs to be formatted"

[Loring Hutchinson]

My 2nd harddrive (operating as a slave) suddenly "needs to be
formatted". I have used this drive as a storage place for most of my
graphics work. while working in the graphics mode last week I got an
error message and then freeze up. I had to do a hard reboot and when I
clicked on this drive to open it I got the "needs to be formatted"
Before I reformat (and remove the entire contants of the drive) is
there any was to recover any part or parts of the files that are on
this drive. All my operating systems and applications are on my
primary hard drive so my computer works fine, I just can't access the
2nd harddrive.
TIA Loring

 

[Ghostrider]

My 2nd harddrive (operating as a slave) suddenly "needs to be
formatted". I have used this drive as a storage place for most of my
graphics work. while working in the graphics mode last week I got an
error message and then freeze up. I had to do a hard reboot and when I
clicked on this drive to open it I got the "needs to be formatted"
Before I reformat (and remove the entire contants of the drive) is
there any was to recover any part or parts of the files that are on
this drive. All my operating systems and applications are on my
primary hard drive so my computer works fine, I just can't access the
2nd harddrive.
TIA Loring

One can try to recover the files by checking whether or not this HD is
still functional. While it could still might be seen in bios setup, all
it means is that the electronics card is fine. Removing the drive and
putting it as a slave in another computer would determine whether or not
the file tables are still intact. If the files can be seen, it would then
be the time to make that backup. Otherwise, the bad news is that the HD
has crashed. Run diagnostics to determine the extent of the failure.

 

[Terry]

On 4/11/2007 6:02 PM On a whim, Loring Hutchinson pounded out on the
keyboard

My 2nd harddrive (operating as a slave) suddenly "needs to be
formatted". I have used this drive as a storage place for most of my
graphics work. while working in the graphics mode last week I got an
error message and then freeze up. I had to do a hard reboot and when I
clicked on this drive to open it I got the "needs to be formatted"
Before I reformat (and remove the entire contants of the drive) is
there any was to recover any part or parts of the files that are on
this drive. All my operating systems and applications are on my
primary hard drive so my computer works fine, I just can't access the
2nd harddrive.
TIA Loring

Hi Loring,

Here's a link that may be useful:
http://blog.micfo.com/2006/10/06/troubleshooting-hard-drive-problems/

Report back,

--
Terry

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[John John]

You may be able to recover the drive with disk editing or data recovery
tools. Unless there is severe MFT corruption this disk error can
usually be fairly easily be corrected. Read here for a good explanation
of why the error usually occurs:
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/art-raw-filesystem.htm

John