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"Disk is not formatted"

6K views 30 replies 5 participants last post by  THGhost 
#1 · (Edited)
I have a 400GB Western Digital MyBook External HDD, it was working fine before, I turned it off and when I turned it on again it was not properly recognised by My Computer and when I tried to open it I got this message:

"Disk is not formatted
The disk in drive P is not formatted.
Do you want to format it now? [Y/N]"

I've seen many threads regarding this issue and I have tried everything they suggest, i.e. TestDisk - nothing happens when I reboot, Seagate's diagnostic utility - everything comes out as PASS, but I still can't access the files on the HDD, etc.

I tried plugging it into a different USB port and got the same result. I then tried plugging it into another PC and it didn't recognise it in My Computer at all. :confused:

Any help would be much appreciated. :smile:

PS. Please try and keep your reply as simple as possible!

EDIT: I'd actually just like to add that when I tried TestDisk I got these results:

Boot sector
Status: OK

Backup boot sector
Status: OK

Sectors are identical.

I then have the option of "Quit", "List" (Which doesn't work, "Filesystem seems to be damaged"), "Rebuild BS" (Which doesn't seem to do anything), "Repair MFT" ("Can't read NTFS MFT") and "Dump".
 
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#8 ·
Well somehow you need to get the drive out of the case. One thing you must not do is try to send it back under warranty, as the likeliehood is that you'd get a swapover, and then all's lost.
Have you researched WD's website ? The case obviously comes off : the factory put it around a hard drive and other bits.
 
#10 ·
Trying to take a case apart not knowing how to do this is not a good idea and will lead to disastor. Please check on the western digital site and see if you can find instructions on how to properly disassemble the case.

Since this is an external hard drive and you shut it down have you tried turning it back on when the computer is running and then rebooting the computer to see if it is fond after reboot?
 
#11 ·
From the WD's website's Service and Support:

"Removing a drive from its external case will void the warranty. If you want to upgrade your FireWire, USB, or Combo drive without voiding your warranty, please purchase a new, larger external drive.


For more information about upgrading your WD drive, please contact us at 1-800-275-4932 in the U.S. and Canada and 00800- 27549338 in Europe."


I cba to call someone :normal:


ThorXP: It still doesn't work :sad:
 
#12 ·
Well, I do not know what cba means but I assume it means that you will not call them, I would suggest not taking the case appart but try this:

Make a Live Linux disk and see if Linux sees the drive and if it does copy all of the data to another hard drive and then go back to windows and format the drive and restoe the data.

You will need a computer with an internet connection and a cd-rom burner or dvd burner.

Go to this site and dowload the file below:

ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/nv/ao2/lxmirror/releases.ubuntu.com/8.04.1/

Download file = ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso

Then burn the ISO file thru a program like Nero or Roxio and you will end up with a bootable disk and then boot from it and let it run without installing and you will be able to navigate to the western digital drive and see if there is anything on it.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Any additional help in this thread would be greatly appreciated. I have a WD My Book Home Edition 1TB external hard drive that is experiencing the same issues. Operating environment at home is (32bit) Win XP Pro SP3. Problem is almost identical in nature. Drive once worked and has data on it, however one morning when I turned on my computer & connected and attempted to access the My Book, I also received the "disk is not formatted" error message.

Current troubleshooting performed:

Attempted to connected the My Book to two other computers on which it had previously worked. Both are 32bit Win XP machines, one XP Home, one XP Pro; both exhibited the same error message.

On all three machines I attempted an "uninstall" of the device drivers via Device Manager and then a "reinstall". This did not fix the issue. I also tried connecting the drive to the three computers via USB 2.0 and Firewire to no avail.

Currently Win XP's built-in Disk Management tool shows the following information:

Volume (G)
Layout - Partition
Type - Basic
File System - [null/empty]
Status - Healthy
Capacity - 931.51 GB
Free Space - 931.51 GB --> This is incorrect as I have a few hundred GB of data on the drive
Free - 100%
Fault Tolerance - No
Overhead - 0%

However, it should be noted that the Local Disk (G) Properties window shows File System as "RAW" and Used and Free Space at 0 bytes.

This morning I contacted Western Digital support via email describing the issue and the steps I took to try and resolve this (mentioned above) and asking for their advice on further steps to take. I've received an email response already and am working with them on it now.

Finally, as THGhost correctly pointed out, cracking open the enclosure myself and attempting salvage operations by using the drive as a slave would void the warranty, so I am holding off on that option as a last resort measure.
 
#20 ·
I believe so - from my email conversations with Western Digital from first to latest in descending order. I'm currently waiting to hear back from them:



WD From the description you have provided us, indicates that the drive was disconnected incorrectly at one time and or there was a power surge or outage while the drive was connected. Either way the drive will need to be formatted to get working correctly. Please go to disk management to check the status of the drive, how is the drive shown next to it's disk number?

Me Disk Management says the following about the drive:

Volume (G)
Layout - Partition
Type - Basic
File System - [null/empty]
Status - Healthy
Capacity - 931.51 GB
Free Space - 931.51 GB --> This is incorrect as I have a few hundred GB of data on the drive
Free - 100%
Fault Tolerance - No
Overhead - 0%

However, it should be noted that the Local Disk (G) Properties window shows File System as "RAW" and Used and Free Space at 0 bytes.

Going off of what you stated, that there may have been a power surge or the drive was improperly disconnected (neither of which occurred to the best of my knowledge as I was using it at night, turned everything off per my usual routine - Safely Remove Hardware, followed by unplugging the device once Win XP gives the OK to do so - and the following morning it failed to work) - if that messed with the File System type status message Win is getting from the device, is there a way to "reset" that portion of the My Book's data, perhaps akin to flashing a BIOS?

WD unfortunately if the file structure of the drive is showing as raw, means it became corrupt and would need to be formatted to get working. No there is no reset for getting the drives structure back. To get your data back, you will need to use data recovery software (I myself use Ontrack), if the software you use does not see the drive nor retrieve the data in its' state, you may have to format it first then run the software on it. I have had format my drives first, but was able to recover all my pictures, music, videos and documents.

Me As far as formatting the drive is concerned, I was under the impression that a format erases all of the data on the drive, not merely fooling the operating system into thinking that the space is now free (as happens when you delete something from your hard drive - the data is still there until overwritten). I thought that formatting the drive would actually overwrite all the data. In fact the warning message given when formatting is the following:

"WARNING: Formatting will erase ALL data on this disk."

If I were to use the OnTrack data recovery software, which one would I be interested in? I checked their website and they have at least 6 different versions of the do-it-yourself software. Also, what kind of formatting would I be required to do? What is the difference between Win XP's regular format and "Quick Format" options and how will that affect my data recovery operation?
 
#21 ·
Latest update. Going by that, it would definitely seem that there is an attainable solution to our problems. However, it will likely be an expensive one, as data recovery software & services are not cheap to say the least. However, at least we now have hope! :smile:


WD Dear [calcul8],

Thank you for your reply.

[calcul8], the one that I have at home is Easyrecovery Datarecovery. When formatting a drive basically does the same when deleted a file, the data is still there until over written. I have in fact used this software on my very first drive 14 years old and has been formatted countless times and this software still finds data from when I first installed 98 on it.

Doing a full format will rewrite the file structure on all sectors of the drive and the quick one just does part of the beginning and part of the end giving same results. The only time I do the full if it is a brand new drive and never been formatted,otherwise I use the quick method.

Now, [calcul8], you may want to do an online search for data recovery software, you might find something better and cheaper (there are some free ones out there) do not know how good they are but yes there are some that are free.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
 
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