External HDD Acting Up: "You Need To Format The Disk In Drive F: Before You Can Use It."
May 6, 2009
I am writing because i have an external 500Gig Western Digital HDD that I have been using for months now...it has not been exposed to extreme temperatures, banged around or overused in any way. I plugged it in today and it showed up under "My Computer" as Local Disk(F: ).
Then a message came up stating "You need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it." Next it asks if i want to format now, and i can choose Format, or Cancel. I am not sure if this is some sort of driver issue, something more serious with the computer, or if this is something with this drive.
I have a 500GB MY BOOK external hard drive that I use for my monthly backup. I did a right click/properties/general and saw My Book is almost used up. Do I format the external drive and start another back up series? Is there a way I can back up over the previous data? As you can tell I am new to external hard drives....
It's unable to either normally format any external memory devices into a FAT or FAT32 format, or unable to read it at all. I keep trying to open the device but it keeps saying that i need to format it, but because of problem 1, it can't be formated (it almost completes but the process shuts down, stating that it can't be formated). This problem has been happening for the longest time and I really need this fixed.
When I say external memory devices, i mean CDs, DVDs, Flash drives, SD cards, memory card readers. Everytime I check the disk management of these devices, it says they are Primary Partitioned (which is the normal status right?). And the only thing that seems to be the problem is the RAW file system (which I heard windows doesn't read)............
i just bought My Book Essential 1 TB today... and when i got home i plug it and it works just fine but its bothering me that the HDD type is FAT32 .. so i format it and try to change it to NTFS.. but somethings happen and boom the electric in my apartment was down... and so when the electric back i want to format it again but i can't... there drive is detected but with no space detail... it says "Windows can't format Drive H: - Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, make sure that the disk is not read-only, and then try again.
For more information, search Help for read-only files and how to change them" when i open the Disk Management from (My COmputer > Manage) it seems it's already a volume.. but the weird thing there is no space detail.. and i cant erase the volume ... i've tried using diskpart but i can't do nothing because there is no volume and i can't erase the disk... no luck with fsutil cause its not ntfs... I havent tried 3rd party software and i havent tried it on other computer (don't have other computer right now) and WDC didnt give live cd for formatting because all of them was in the drive... though i already redownload it but the program is useless..
It's my new Sony ebook reader. It works fine on my old XP pc but not my Vista Home Premium laptop. I don't know how reformatting an actual reader would affect the device since every one at the Sony forum has only reformat their memory from the actual reader that has a reformat memory, you lose your books but all the Sony applications that runs the reader are still intact. Since I got this error, I've reformatted via the actual reader and still every time I plug my reader in my USB port, I get this error. I'm scared if I say yes that all the applications that makes the reader works will be wiped out. Here is the thread in the Sony Reader Forum of them trying to help me. I come on on #8 post as Sandyn Sony Reader Forum - Sony PRS300
I have a new Vista Ultimate OS and put an Hitachi 320Gig Hard drive in the extra slot. It shows up in Computer Management disk drives along with the WDC drive that came with. Populating the drive shows Disk: Disk 1 Type: Dynamic ond online..If I go to ..Storage and Disk Managment Disk 1 shows up as unallocated.I tried to format disk 1 /FS:NTFS /V:dorathy to no avail. How do I get Vista to recongnize this dirve????
I can't copy to my USB flash disk (Kingston Data Traveler 8GB) or my external hard drive - Toshiba 2.5'' 160 GB HDD in a USB powered external enclosure. I can copy very small files to the flash drive - like 500-800 kb. Anything bigger results in "preparing to copy" window with a scrolling bar. Nothing happens if i wait... The first time i plugged in the USB hard drive, Windows recognized it and tried installing drivers for it but it just hung on "Windows is installing drivers for this device" and i had to unplug the drive since nothing was happening. Now nothing happens, i don't even get the previously mentioned balloon in the bottom right corner, though the hard drive powers up.
And to make this even crazier, my USB mouse and keyboard work just fine, no matter of what USB i connect them (front panel, back). I tried uninstalling them from Device Manager, enabling/disabling Legacy USB Support from the BIOS (was set to BIOS Setup Only), plugging them in all the USB port i have, including front panel. There is nothing wrong with both the USB flash drive and the USB hard drive - they work perfectly on my laptop the second i plug them in.
I need to purchase a USB 3.5 inch external floppy disk drive to transfer files from from my old computer, which is running Windows 98, to my new computer running Vista Home Premium. The external floppy disk drives I've looked at on NewEgg.com all support versions of Windows up to Vista but not including Vista. I do not want to deal with driver problems so I'm doing this research up front
I have tried to format my computer, first I tried by just inserting the disc, no luck, then I tried booting it from the disc, no luck then I tried going into computer management right clicking my c drive but the format option is no available. I have evn tried phoneing Microsoft but they want $80.00. Finally I thought I would format it by using my XP disc, installing XP and then upgrading to put vista back on the system but it won't let me do that either. I desperately want to format my computer
Vista Home Premium. I have no third-party CD/DVD recording software on the machine. Every time I go to burn files to a CDR, CDRW, DVD R or DVDRW using the Windows burning function it wants to format the disk. If I cancel the format, then the burn is not proceeded with. XP does not do this. How do I stop this infuriating behaviour?
i have a sata hard drive running windows vista 32 business. how would i format the hard drive completely and start again? i did a reinstall last weekend but it would not give me the option for format from the DVD, it just gave me a "windows.old" folder which wasn't really what i wanted.
I'm trying to format some CD-RW disks to make my backup disks and only once out of about 10 tries have I been successful. I keep getting a message that says "windows is unable to format disk"
I've basically screwed up documents and important stuff so i need help reinstalling vista from the dvd, Formatting the hard drive. My M/B is a ga-p35-ds3l and i cant use my keyboard if the shut down is forced it auto chooses.
I was trying to install Fedora 10 (linux distro) but I had accidentally changed settings for both hard drives.. Meaning I formatted both hard drives.. and when the installation failed, I had the error "no operating system found"
I had a C:/ drive and an X:/ drive.. I can't see my C:/ drive.. but in CMD I'm using X:/ but it was formatted so.. hehe.. no operating system..
I used the Vista DVD.. I tried to format but I get a disk error. (corrupted)
Now I'm not sure what to do to format my drives to NTFS.. I wana get my data back aswell.. But I doubt it'll be there if it's there.. I can't see..
I just delete to partitions from disk 0.. So I have 153 Gb free space.. But Windows install says "Windows is unable to find system volume that meets its criteria for installation" ?
when booting up from a vista cd I accidentally had my usb external hard drive plugged in and the drive has been emptied and replaced by windows there are sintimental photos etc on the drive can anyone help me to restore them
I have bought a second hand laptop with windows vista business installed. There is a sticker on the bottom of the laptop showing the installed windows is a genius one. But part of the label gets wore out. I want to make format the hard disk and do a clean re-installation of vista again. However, I am so worry that if I miss the serial number, I would be stuck in the middle of the process.
I was starting my computer today (that has Vista), and during the start up process, a black screen came up stating that there was an error opening up my external hard drive and it was checking for errors. After it finally booted up, I went to open the hard drive files, and it was totally BLANK! I then restarted the computer, and still the hard drive is EMPTY! I had ALL my important files in there!
The ONLY thing that looks promising is that when I go to Start then to Computer, it shows the hard drive there, and it still shows that 43GB are free of 111GB of storage (same info shows by right clicking on it and going to Properties). Why would it show this if nothing is on the hard drive anymore? Is there ANYWAY to recover these files again you think???? I NEED those files!!!! Remember that the hard drive STILL PHYSICALLY WORKS. It's just that I cannot access the files on my pc at the time for some reason.......
I just bought and installed a external hard drive. I am fairly knowlegable about computers but this is my first Ex. Hard drive and know very little about there use. So what I want to know is how to save my Family Tree Makers files to it. And once I do that how do I know for sure it is opening from my new drive and not my computer C: drive? I saved it to a DVD one time but when the time came when I needed it all that was there was a short cut but no files.
I just installed a new MB (Biostar MCP6P M2+) and CPU AMD 64 x2 Brisbane 4200+ 2.2ghz. overclocked to 2.8ghz. and installed Vista x64 Premium OS. I was trying to import some pictures into Picasa from an SD card via a multi card reader on my Canon MP130 printer and the program froze. I shut it down. When I tried to use my multi card reader attached to the MB it wanted to format my disk??? is this because I am using a x64 system? After a few more attempts my entire system froze. I hard rebooted and when the POST comes up it only shows the CPU info and stops?
I just used Windows Vista to back up my drive to an external drive. It said the backup was successful but when I went to safely remove hardware, I got this message: " Windows can't stop your Generic volume device because it is in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again later. "I made sure everything was closed, checked with Task Manager and tried again. Same message. After 20 minutes, I finally just disconnected it.
I want to format my c drive in windows vista, I went to disk management,and right click the drive but it is greyed out??.. I want to do a clean install of vista.
my laptop has 1 hard drive that is partitioned in 2 c drive works fine e drive was stopping me from deleting anything from it tried everything so last resort format it so windows started formatting just about to finish and it failed now it wont let me format it and when i went in to computer management it says it is a healthy primary partition drive but the file system is raw how can i get this back to ntfs
I have a Vista Ultimate DVD, I want to do a full format of my hard drive, the Vista DVD only does a quick format, or so it seems, it is over in less than a minute.
I have a Vista Ultimate DVD, I want to do a full format of my hard drive, the Vista DVD only does a quick format, or so it seems, it is over in less than a minute. How do I do a full format before I install?
I've recently been struck down with a trojan. I restored my computer to factory defaults, thinking this would do the trick. It did. However, I'm at Ohio State, and they're policy is that you have to totally reformat your hard drive before you'll be able to use the wireless internet. The problem is, i have an HP HDX16, and HP does not ship with Vista install disks, they have a hidden partition. I tried doing a system restore 3 times, and it didnt work. I backed dup the system defaults to an external hard drive,
My question is, how do i format my hard drive without the Vista Disks?
The link below is to the computer I'm on the verge of buying. But, I'm not sure if it will be good for gaming now and in the future. I am torn between 64 bit and 32 bit. What I was thinking to do was to format my hard drive and reinstall 64 bit when the time comes (when all the bugs are worked out). I'm not worried about buying a new graphics card and RAM, as that's expected..........................
I have just repartioned an old ide hard drive which has a very small partition with XP on and i now have a large partition on the drive that i want to use as a back up drive. What format is the best for backup? I have heard that FAT32 is good and it also means it can be read by OSX if the need ever arose (could be useful because my flat mate is a mac user).
