my system tells me that my external hardrive is not formatted 3

[frogboytim]

I have been using my maxtor HDD externaly for slightly less than a year. Without any previous symptoms my system recently began telling me that the drive is not formatted. It still recognizes it however. Any advice out there?

 

[vacunita]

External Drives are known to get file table corruptions every now and then. The OS cannot see whats on them even though its still there. Thus it tells you its not formatted.

Its like having a List with the contents of a drawer. You don't have the list you can't know whats inside until you open the drawer. However. OS's are incapable of opening the drawer without the list so they'd just tell you it doesn't have a list (its not formatted).

I would use any available Data recovery software, to retrieve the information of the drive, and then format it.

http://www.runtime.org

has the best one out there IMHO.



----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wahnula]

External Drives are known to get file table corruptions every now and then

Vacunita, this is interesting. Why are external drives more susceptible to file table corruptions? They are all I am using for several critical backup duties, I would like to know.

I don't want to discuss COAX lol...

Tony

 

[vacunita]

Depends on the type of usage you give them. For a casual user, that likes to unplug them without stopping the device, if the OS hasn't finished writing the information to the drive, and updating the table, you a get a corrupt table.

If you let it sit until its done and properly stop the device, you reduce the corruptions to a minimum.

Other times its the interface itself, if something happens to it like it got snagged when writing. Or the drive was abruptly moved it can cause writing problems.

Power variations can be very damaging. If you don't have the drive plugged into a regulator.

I'm not saying all these things will invariably cause corruption, but it should be take into account that all electronic equipment is bound to fail at some point. USB drives are just more susceptible to writing failures due to their very nature. However if you make sure to stop the device before unplugging it. Have a constant flow of electricity, and keep it from shaking or moving abruptly you can minimize the risk .


----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wahnula]

So, I should not rely on the double-USB power supply to my laptop drive cases. Makes sense, a wall wart is cheap insurance. My 3.5" drives all have their own power cables, so that's good, and I switch them off between routine backups. They are used for on-demand backups.

make sure to stop the device before unplugging it.

I always try to do this but 50% of the time my SBS 2003 gives me the message "the device Generic Volume cannot be stopped now. Try stopping the device later" and I wait...and wait...and finally yank. Of course I have multiples (3-2.5" drives) and rotate weekly but to date no problems. I realize everything has a MTBF.

I will definitely pick up an external power supply. Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

Tony

 

[vacunita]

Your welcome,
Usually when you get the the device Generic Volume cannot be stopped now. Try stopping the device later"
Means its actually doing something.

Sometimes it might be you left a window open that shows the drive, or some application is still using the drive. Yanking is not a good idea. If after checking everything, the message still appears, and I've had it happen to me in more than one occasion, its more advisable to turn off the computer and then disconnect, than just flat out yanking them.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wahnula]

its more advisable to turn off the computer and then disconnect, than just flat out yanking them.

Sounds like I need a better backup plan for my SBS2003SP1 server then, as weekly shutdown/reboots are not practical.

The backup routine runs at night, when it's over, it's over and the drives are invisible to all machines but the server itself. Aside from periodic checks from Windows to make sure the drive is still there there should be zero read/write activity. No windows open etc. Next time I will give it 30 minutes and see.

Tony

 

[Freestone]

A lot of times, just simply logging off then logging back on cures the "the device Generic Volume cannot be stopped now. Try stopping the device later" message.

 

[wahnula]

Ahhh...thanks for the time-saving tip Freestone. Better to log off/on than reboot the server. I will try that tip the next time it happens and report back.

Tony