Solved format external hard drive that wont show up in my computer

[Paronomasia]

i used WBFS manager 3.0 to put a super mario galaxy 2 iso as a backup on my seagate external hard drive. (my original is scratched up enough as it is and has lots lag) it worked perfectly on my wii but then i decided to backup all my wii games, just in case. but first i had to get them off of one computer to another because i would not have access to the other for a long time. so i formatted the external hard drive using wbfs manager, not my computer and then my computer stopped showing that it is plugged in. when i plug it in the computer makes the usb noise and the light on the hard drive shows up, but i cant access it. i tried going into cmd and doing dskchk but it didn't work it said unable to directly access it then i tried going into disk management but it said i got an I/O error. then i clicked on the seagate drive (it said drive 1) but the weird thing is that it said it had 2TB or memory when its only a 300GB drive. i couldn't have mistaken it for my computer's hard drive because its only 1TB. i have tried using all the usb ports, front and back, used different cables, tried it on 3 different computers, but same problem. i tried uninstalling and re installing the driver but to no avail. it could not have been damaged because i was using it right before i formatted it. and only after that did it stop working. its not a registry error because i did regcure but it didn't fix it. all i want is to use my drive again. i would greatly appreciate it if anyone can help. thanks.

 

[jumanji]

Check to see whether this helps. How to convert from WBFS to FAT32 or NTFS - GBAtemp.net

 

[Paronomasia]

Unfortunately that is not a solution to my problem. The drive won't show up in my computer or wbfs manager. I have to assume there is absolutely no data on it, that includes the filesystem and bios (I don't even know what a bios is for or how to use one)

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Control Panel/ Admin Tools/Computer Management/Storage/ Disk Management.

See if it is in there.

 

[seavixen32]

Explanation of the BIOS here: A guide to the computer's BIOS

It would be helpful to check the BIOS to see if the drive is recognised there.

Your computer user manual should explain how to do so.

 

[Paronomasia]

@hipster, it's labled as "disk 1" and says it has over 2,000GB on it, even though it only has 300. Right clicking shows all the options are greted out except for help and properties

 

[Paronomasia]

bump... im not computer whiz. i have no idea how to do most of this stuff but if i don't get that drive working again i will be in deep trouble

 

[whs]

Right click where it says "Disk1". Do you have the 'initialize' option.

 

[Paronomasia]

Ok, I click initialize, then what do I do?

 

[seavixen32]

Once you've initialized the drive it'll have been given a low-level format and you'll then need to right-click the drive space to create a new partition, allocate a drive letter and format the drive.

Whether you give it a quick format or a full format is up to you, but on today's large drives the latter will take a long time.

 

[mjf]

If you think you have useful data on the disk try running Recuva on it just in case.
If your HDD needs initializing Windows should prompt you to do this.
You then need to do a standard format. I think "Quick" is good enough (for modern disks low level formatting is done in the factory).
Assign partitions letters.
Finally I would then run a full CHKDSK.

 

[Paronomasia]

thank you!!! it works now

 

[dirpyjosh]

Control Panel/ Admin Tools/Computer Management/Storage/ Disk Management.

See if it is in there.

What ifit's not in there?