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#1
Unable to access or format external hard drives
I have 2 ADATA 500 GB external hard drives. I plugged them into the USB port and the computer recognized them by name and installed the driver files. It assigned both of them a drive letter but then gave me a message saying that they needed to be formatted. I clicked ok since they are brand new drives and do not have any data on them, but the format failed to complete on both drives. I took both drives to another PC running Windows Vista and they were recognized and accessible. I even transferred a few files to them for testing purposes; however, when I plugged them back into my Alienware laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64, then I got the same error. If I go to the disk manager, then I can see the drives by their drive letter and they are listed as healthy with a primary partition but the file format shows as RAW. I tried to use the device manager and uninstall the USB Mass Storage Device drivers for each drive and then I unplugged them and plugged them in again and I would get a device driver installation message that identifies the drives by name and tells me that the device drivers were installed correctly and that my devices are ready for use but then a few minutes later I will get a message telling me to format the drives. Please help. I've run out of things to try. I can still access my iPhone via USB and my USB wireless mouse still works so I know my USB ports are good.