FreeAgent Products

[t3knoid]

I have a FreeAgent Desktopp 500G (ST305004FDA1E1-RK) USB external drive that has been working for some time (about 2 months). Today, when I tried to access the drive via Windows Explorer, I get the following message: Disk is not formatted The disk in drive H is not formatted Do you want to format it now? [Yes] [No] Needless to say I did not choose to format it since I know the drive *is* formatted with a lot of data. The Seagate drive manager sees the drive but with 1 byte free space. The drive had about 4GB of free space when I last looked. It seems to me that the partition table is not as it should be and looking for a tool that can recover it. I suspect that this is the case because drive manager doesn't recognize the file type. This also explains why Windows thinks it needs reformatting. I'm using Windows XP pro with the latest service packs.

[TRoss]

If you ran seatools and it passes the drive you might check the following link for information on safe removal. Failure to safely remove can corrupt the data on the external device.

Since this is a backup device and I am assuming you still have the data in both locations, a simple partition and reformat will solve the issue.

Here

[gccircle]

I suspect the "safely remove" suggestion in another post might be right on the mark.   I have encountered the same problem twice with a Maxtor 3200 USB external 500 Gig backup drive that was formatted to have one total-disk partition.  After running a few weeks as the G:\ drive, suddenly a additional H:\ drive appeared from nowhere that has one 8 Meg partition.  Both G:\ and H:\ are visible in My Computer, and the H:\ says it is unformatted.  The first time I ran into this problem, I made the FATAL mistake of accidentally formatting the H:\ partition  with fdisk while I was doing some other disk maintenance.  The whole drive's contents got obliterated, that is both G:\ and H:\.  The workaround is annoying:  copying all the content off to another drive, re-partitioning, and reformatting, and copying the files back to make the error go away. 

[nicebikemate]

Hi there,

basically i've had the same problem, due i'm guessing, to me accidently not removing it 'safely'. My fault i know but it was late at night and, like i say, did it by accident.

Unfortunately I was reformating my main drive at the time so the seagate one had all my important information on it including pictures etc etc.

Have downloaded Seatools and am currently running some tests how ever seeing as i don't really know what i'm doing i'm not holding my breath that it will fix anything.

When i plug the drive in I get 1 usb partion (drive h however when i click on it it says drive not formatted do you want to format.. i said yes and it says the drive is only 108gb in size (it's a free agent pro 1tb).

Can anyone help? I'm really desperate as i'm currently moving house and haven't got any money spare and i believe professionals charge alot to recover data.

thanks very much for your time

robert sanders

[manchestman]

nicebikemate,

Have tried dozens of so called recovery progs with differing rates of success over the last couple of years. "Recover my files" is definately the best and well wroth getting. It has just recovered nearly 300gb of data on an external drive originally formatted to fat32 but accidentally formatted to ntsc with near perfect results. Included text, many film and photos ect. It did take several days so automatic windows updates has to be turned off in case of pc restart, but def the best!

[Steve1001]

I have a OneTouch4 500 GB external drive that is doing the same thing.  It is only used as a backup drive and is never removed from the computer, so I don't think the improper removal applies.  I use it in a small office and it BU's five computers, one each night of the week.  It works fine for about a month and then I'll come in one morning and access the drive and get the message says "the disk in drive F: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"  I've have answered yes and then immediatly done a manual BU of the five computers because everything got wiped out with the format.  Then it will work fine for about a month and happen again.  This is actually the second Maxtor OneTouch that has done this.  I used to have a 250 GB drive that did the same thing.  I replaced that one with this one because I thought the 250 and just given up the ghost.  Any suggestions?

[Melonade]

Steve1001

thats weird and im sure its annoying

what is the os?

do the drives fall asleep?  what about the computers?

if the drives sleep, set them to never sleep, and turn windows to never turn off this device to save power, and set the drive to optimise for quick removal.

if the computers sleep, you might consider turning the sleep feature for that computer off for a time to test.  ive heard of sleep features causing unsafe removals before.  weird but true

[Steve1001]

Thanks for the reply.  OS is XP Pro, the drives are set to never turn off.  I did change to optimize for quick removal.  The only thing set to sleep are the monitors.  Is it possible to get some kind of repeating corrupted file from one of the computers I backup to cause this type of behavior?

[Pipper]

I too have the same problem. Ive had my Maxtor 500gb(OneTouch 4) for about 1 year. I have saved many files, music and data. Now I get an error message, my drive isn't formated. I didnt format it, so I came here looking for an answer. I really need to restore all the data I have. Im running on Vista.

I ran the short test on seatools, and they all passed. I connected to another computer, and i get same problem. Can anyone help please !