Can't access my hardrive

[Olice]

Hi there, I've looked through some other posts but I just can't seem to fix my problem.

Currently, I have a 500gb Lacie external hd which was working fine a couple days ago but now it won't show up in my computer. So I went to Disk Management and it turns out that it had no letter assigned, I tried to change it but the option was grayed out. I also went to "cmd" and typed in Diskpart and list volume/disk. The hard drive doesn't show up under volume though, only under disk. Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks

 

[Jonathan_King]

What format does the drive have? I am going to bed in a few minutes, so I will not be around till morning, but hopefully others can help you.

 

[Olice]

How do I find the format of the drive?

 

[rsvr85]

Once you typed in;
diskpart
list disk - select the disk ie;
select disk 1 - and then type;
active - and then
assign

Once the disk is selected, type;
detail disk
this will show the format of the drive.
Hope this helps

 

[Olice]

Once I typed in active, it said no disk selected even though I typed select disk 1. Anything else I can do?

 

[Olice]

After I typed detail disk, this is what showed up:

ST350083 0AS USB Device
Disk ID: 2B682E15
Type: USB
Status: Online
Path: 0
Target: 0
LUN ID: 0
Location path: Unavailable
Current read-only state: No
Read-only: No
Boot Disk: No
Pagefile disk: No
Hibernation file disk: No
Crashdump disk: No
Clustered disk: No

There are no volumes.

 

[rsvr85]

I would suggest using test disk to extract your data, clean the drive, reformat and copy the data back over.

 

[Jonathan_King]

How do I find the format of the drive?

What is on the drive? A Linux distro? A previous version of Windows?

 

[Olice]

Nothing is on the drive. It's empty.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that it was previously formatted by a Bell TV Satellite receiver.

 

[rsvr85]

in an elevated command prompt, type the following;

diskpart
list disk
select disk #
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs
assign
exit
exit

 

[Olice]

Okay, so once I typed in clean. After a while, an error showed up. It said "The system cannot find the file specified. See the System event log for more information."

 

[rsvr85]

That's odd as the system shouldn't be looking for anything. Can you proceed with the other commands or not?
Have you looked at the event viewer for errors?

 

[Olice]

Turns out that the hard drive disconnected itself, I reconnected and retried. Now clean works, how long does this typically take?

 

[rsvr85]

As quick as you can type. As the drive is empty anyway, when you get to
format fs=ntfs
instead type;
format fs=ntfs quick

 

[Olice]

EDIT: I typed clean but after a couple of minutes, it would disconnect the hard drive and say "The system cannot find the file specified." And then a couple of minutes later, the hard drive would reconnect. Anything I can do to stop this?

*EDIT: Once again, clean succeeded after a couple of tries.

 

[rsvr85]

Once you have typed clean, the drive is clean no matter if you carry on with the commands or not.
Once the drive is reconnected & presumably 'cleaned') proceed with the following commands;

create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs quick
assign
exit
exit

 

[Olice]

Whenever I type format fs=ntfs quick, it will disonnect the hard drive and say "The parameter is incorrect"??

 

[rsvr85]

It shouldn't do either of those things, the parameter isn't incorrect.....

Try just plain old;
format fs=ntfs
or;
format fs=NTFS

(Stating the obvious here i know) Make sure that the drive is selected again, ie. diskpart, list disk, select disk #

 

[Olice]

Thank you so far, I only got to the step before formatting but I was able to assign a letter to the drive now, but it still will not let me format it. It shows up in my computer now but I still can't access it. Every time I try to format it, it always says Windows can not complete the format.

 

[rsvr85]

Now the drive has been cleaned, no amount of assigning a letter to it will work unless it's formatted. The drive needs a file system ie. NTFS to function with the OS, it currently doesn't have that.
So, what happens when you get to; format fs=ntfs (quick) in diskpart? Does the drive just keep on disconnecting?