External crashed asks to reformat cannot reformat

Yeah only my internal hard drive shows up the os and the recovery partitions. It wont show the external.

Ok well I tried the WD fat 32 formatter and It says its to small I'll post a snao shot of it.

Try formatting with one of these tools.

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
http://h50178.www5.hp.com/local_driv...50/SP27608.exe

EASEUS Partition Master
Best FREE Partition Manager Freeware for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7. EASEUS free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

fat32format
Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd

GUI version of fat32format
Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd

The hp link didn't connect through, the easeus couldnt run becuase of some restriction, fat32format was there and gone in a second couldnt get it to stay and the gui version couldnt detect the external.

Nvm downloaded the hp one it says its formatting at the moment I'll let you know if it just hangs up or actually formats.

It failed saying device media is protected?

Try this solution for the device protected error.

Remove Write Protection On USB Pen Drive or Memory Card or iPod

Nvm I tried a full format and I got the protected error then i tried quick and it worked! The whole 1 tb is back and its read by everything. Thank you so much I tried everything I was going to ship it back but now that its fixed I wont worry about it to much hassle. This is the second time windows 7 has asked me to format my external do you have any clue how this happens? The second time it started after i stopped a defrag on it. I keep losing hundreds of files there just media files but still.

Well, AFAIK, one reason it happens is because a dirty flag is generated if E.g. the drive is pulled out without using Safe Eject. What kind of volume policy do you have on this drive- i.e. is it set for safely remove hardware or quick removal? I set my externals to Optimize for quick removal, that way i can just yank them out, but I take care that I close all opens files and folders before doing that.

Ah good call Im running wd data lifeguard extended test becuase it failed the quick test this will take hours. But after that I will set it to quick removal since I connect it to a laptop. I usually safetly eject it if i dont already shut my computer off.

Update- 14 min into test it said to many bad sectors detected O.o should i be worried? Should I do the write zeros application and do a full erase? theres nothing on it at the moment though.

That does look like the drive is dying, although you can try running the repair feature etc. You can run a chkdsk /r but that wont repair a dying drive, it may just make the drive usable for a bit longer by remapping the bad sectors (assuming there are enough good spare ones). After that zeroing the drive may extend the life somewhat but it'll be like a time bomb, you never know when it might go off. I would find that pretty uncomfortable, so best to replace the drive.

awww man thats not good still means I have to return it through ups. I'll think about it. I will probably send it back.

Also what are sectors? like I get that they can go bad and you only have so many but are they corrupt spots in the drive itself?

And whats your take one size and speed should i go with a 2 tb isb or a 1 tb esata? Will the esata make any difference?