Other External products

[DMC]

Hi,

I have a Maxtor Basic 500GB External HD connected via USB to my main PC

This HD contained backup data from our main PC.

After performing a clean install of XP Pro on our system C drive (including delete C partition then repartitioning C),

it seems that somehow the Maxtor HD may have been completely reformatted - all data lost.

I can state with certainty that during the reformat process, the only drive that was listed was the C drive so I am confident I did not mistakenly select the Maxtor HD.

Currently , when I click on the Maxtor HD in Windows Exlporer, I get the following msg:

"The disk in drive F is not formatted

Do you want to format it now"

Also, Disk Management now reports the Maxtor drive as follows:

Type = Bsic

File System = blank

Status = Healthy

Capacity = 465.75GB

Free Space =  465.75GB

I have not chosen to format it as yet in the hope that someonemay be able to show me how to recover the data.

Many thanks for considering...

[LBCF1689 · Accepted solution]

Uh oh - did you leave the Maxtor drive connected and turned on while you were reinstalling Windows?  It  might have wrecked the formatting of the Maxtor drive.

Try it on a 2nd computer.  If that doesn't help, try a data recovery software.

[DMC]

Yes I did leave it connected and on during the install - thing is, neither Microsoft support (clean install of XP Pro) nor Maxter make any mention of this caveat.

Will try data recovery as suggested.

Thanks for replying.

[DMC]

Hi Ya,

TestDisk v6-10 is well on the way to retrieving all my lost data - many thanks.

[nickringo]

This have happen to me three times.

The disk is working about a week, suddenly the computer it ask me to format the disk. And I have to recover

the lost data.

I´m very tired of this, formatting, save files, recover the disk again and again.

Something must be wrong with the disk??

[Stoney]

As in the other hald a dozen threads about this with no real solution ..

try repowering up the drive when the computer has rebooted.

works for me.

no other solution known yet I believe.

[annoyed500]

I bought the Maxtor Basic 500GB External HD. and used it for 6 hrs backing up my personal photos ect., turned off my computer. rebooted my computer the next day and get a message:

"The disk in drive F is not formatted

Do you want to format it now"

I don't want to loose my data so I refuse to reformat the drive.  I have tried the power cord trick nothing. I have tried several different computers still the same message appears. I checked the status of the drive and it come up with 

Capacity = 0

Free Space =  0

can anyone tell me how to fix this... I really want to get my data back