Please help - external harddrive - format issue

Phyzelda

I downloaded several videos from my laptop to an external portable hard drive a few weeks ago and now I cannot open my portable hard drive, it says it needs formatting and I really don't want to loose my files that are on it

What can I do? :(

Jnelhams

Try connecting it to another PC and see if you can access it from there, sometimes it can be a driver issue.

danthemoneysavingman

try looking at it with minitool partition wizard home (just an example).
If it says file system type is RAW then you're looking at a hard drive failure, probably. there are threads on this forum which have had some success recovering data from such, i'm sure someone will stick a link here

Gyro

Did you by any chance make an encrypted container on, or even encrypt the whole external disk using 'TrueCrypt' or something similar, as the external disk might then show as 'Needs formatting' under Windows?

Just a thought.

danthemoneysavingman

whats a loose goose? :-P

Phyzelda

I'm sorry - I'm a simpleton when it comes to PCs - I can use them for what I need and that's my maximum knowledge - so apologies if I seem thick.

I've tried it on a different PC and it's still coming up staying it needs to be formatted.

Ita a Verbatim 320GB portable harddrive. All I did was cut videos from my laptop memory and pasted them in a video file on the portable harddrive. If anyone has the time to talk me through (or PM me) what I can do to try and save my information I really would be greatful

Gyro

danthemoneysavingman wrote: »

whats a loose goose? :-P

Dan, -it's one of those things that's possible, unlike a lose goose. (You're pulling my chain eh?)

It is one of the most obvious and common spelling mistakes you see on forums, or even in web articles, and it's a continual minor irritation to me, hence the signature. Just trying to make it easy for people to remember, for those who use 'loose' when they mean 'lose'.

(Yes, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!)

Phyzelda

Sorry - I've changed my spelling!

But can anyone help?

Gyro

Well it doesn't sound like you would know how to encrypt anything on the external drive Phyzelda, so my idea's a non-starter.

Hey Phyzelda - I've just gone back to your original post as your spelling mention puzzled me. I hadn't actually noticed your 'loose' till now. I wasn't trying to get at you. Not trying to 'P' you off personally you understand? It's just my signature, and, erm,....well......, you know.......erm.......:o:o:o

No,... not the face Phyzelda...- not the face!!!

Phyzelda

Sorry Gyro - I'm not finding it a laughing matter - I'm gutted I cannot get on portable hard drive - It's not like I can restore my laptop to prior to copying over the videos as I have my wedding photos on my hard drive and the photos friends have sent me so if I cannot get on it, I'll lose them all

securityguy

Phyzelda wrote: »

Sorry Gyro - I'm not finding it a laughing matter - I'm gutted I cannot get on portable hard drive - It's not like I can restore my laptop to prior to copying over the videos as I have my wedding photos on my hard drive and the photos friends have sent me so if I cannot get on it, I'll lose them all

Data which is not stored on two devices may as well not exist. Hard drives fail. They are inherently unreliable. This is why you must have backups, and although saying so in places like this doesn't appear to be popular, that doesn't make it any less true. If you don't have backups (either to another device, or to a cloud service) then your data is at risk if the drive fails. And drives fail, as you've found out.

If the only copy of the data you have is on a failed hard drive (and it sounds like that is the case) then you will need to get a data recovery company to attempt to retrieve the data. This is not remotely guaranteed, and is not cheap. Sorry.

All I did was cut videos from my laptop memory and pasted them in a video file on the portable harddrive.

Next time, copy and paste them.