Problem: winXP won't access USB Harddisk drive (bad partition table)

[NISO]

Hi,

My PC running Windows XP pro latest SP will no longer access my
external USB Maxtor HD (FAT32) - the HD have work fine for a couple
of months.

The HD is recognized when I plug the USB cable, it appears in Windows
Explorer but it does not show any diskspace used/available, and I
cannot read/write to files and folders. The HD doesn't reaction to
scandisk operations from the property menu

In Disk Manager the HD does NOT appear.

I have installed PartitionMagic (demo) and during program start it
reports a "bad partition table" for the external HD, I've tried
to install PartitionTableDoctor 3.5 (demo) but in this program the HD
doesn't appear, so things can't be fixed

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading this far

Nicholai Sørensen
Elsted, Denmark

 

[Guest]

Having same problem with aftermath of Windows XP upgrade to Pro.

 

[NISO]

I guess you haven't found a solution ? !

- Nicholai

LeoB skrev:

 

[Guest]

Nope - not yet.

I guess you haven't found a solution ? !

- Nicholai

LeoB skrev:

 

[Anna]

Hi,

My PC running Windows XP pro latest SP will no longer access my
external USB Maxtor HD (FAT32) - the HD have work fine for a couple
of months.

The HD is recognized when I plug the USB cable, it appears in Windows
Explorer but it does not show any diskspace used/available, and I
cannot read/write to files and folders. The HD doesn't reaction to
scandisk operations from the property menu

In Disk Manager the HD does NOT appear.

I have installed PartitionMagic (demo) and during program start it
reports a "bad partition table" for the external HD, I've tried
to install PartitionTableDoctor 3.5 (demo) but in this program the HD
doesn't appear, so things can't be fixed

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading this far

Nicholai Sørensen
Elsted, Denmark


Nicholai:
There's some indication the external HD might be defective, is this not so?
Have you checked it out with a diagnostic utility from the manufacturer
(Maxtor) of the HD? If not, perhaps this might be a good first step.
Anna

 

[NISO]

yes, i've tried that utility, but it did't find any maxtor drives -
properly because windows doesn't "see" the drive correctly. Its only a
few months old, not making any noise or other things indicating that
its defect.

PartitionMagic discover the drive, and report a "bad partion table" - I
thought I was posible to somehow reconstruct that table or just
recreate a new one. all data are backup (hopefully )

-Nicholai

Anna skrev:

 

[Anna]

Hi,

My PC running Windows XP pro latest SP will no longer access my
external USB Maxtor HD (FAT32) - the HD have work fine for a couple
of months.

The HD is recognized when I plug the USB cable, it appears in Windows
Explorer but it does not show any diskspace used/available, and I
cannot read/write to files and folders. The HD doesn't reaction to
scandisk operations from the property menu

In Disk Manager the HD does NOT appear.

I have installed PartitionMagic (demo) and during program start it
reports a "bad partition table" for the external HD, I've tried
to install PartitionTableDoctor 3.5 (demo) but in this program the HD
doesn't appear, so things can't be fixed

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading this far

Nicholai Sørensen
Elsted, Denmark


Nicholai:
There's some indication the external HD might be defective, is this not
so?
Have you checked it out with a diagnostic utility from the manufacturer
(Maxtor) of the HD? If not, perhaps this might be a good first step.
Anna

Anna skrev:
yes, i've tried that utility, but it did't find any maxtor drives -
properly because windows doesn't "see" the drive correctly. Its only a
few months old, not making any noise or other things indicating that
its defect.

PartitionMagic discover the drive, and report a "bad partion table" - I
thought I was posible to somehow reconstruct that table or just
recreate a new one. all data are backup (hopefully )
-Nicholai


Nicholai:
Assuming you've correctly used the HD diagnostic from the manufacturer of
the problem HD and that utility does not detect the drive -- that is an
ominous indication that you may be dealing with a dead HD. Admittedly this
is not a definitive indication of a dead HD, but one must consider it. The
fact that it's "not making any noise" nor are there "other things" are of no
consequence.

Is there any way you can uninstall the HD from its enclosure? This is
assuming, of course, that you would not be voiding the warranty should any
warranty still be in effect. And further installing the design of the
enclosure is such that this is a practical operation.

If you can do this, it would be worthwhile to install the hard drive as a
secondary HD in your PC to determine drive recognition and to see whether
the drive is recognized in the BIOS.

Assuming that your USB EHD is a single-unit commercial Maxtor product,
perhaps it would be useful to contact Maxtor to see if they can shed any
light on your problem. Perhaps there's a firmware update for the unit or
they can provide you with some helpful information.
Anna

 

[NISO]

Hi Anna,

Actually I spent the night here i Denmark to void the warranty by
opening the enclosure and installing the HD as a slave. It did seem to
be 1 step forward, because I was able to run chkdsk /f /r.

Unfortunally chkdsk ended up with this error "Insufficient disk space
to fix volume bitmap" which i'm now trouble-shooting

thanks for the input.

- Nicholai