External crashed asks to reformat cannot reformat

[supermasterpig]

I dont know if this is the right place but sounds right, My wd 1 tb my book has gone weird, yesterday it randomly popped up saying the drive needs to be formatted to be used. It already had 100 gb's worth of files on it. I tried reformating it but it said it failed. Now I cannot even get it to load on my computer. I unoinstalled the driver reinstalled it and then it pretty much freezes my computer up. once i unplug the drive it pops up saying i need to format the drive and my computer speeds right back up. Im so frustrated! I just want to reformat it so I can use it again.

 

[supermasterpig]

Any one? I would like to solve this problem so I dont have to buy a new one

 

[SledgeDG]

Check, if the drive gets power (listen if it spins up). When my 500gb crashed, the electronic of the enclosure was faulty.
The drive inside is just a regular WD, so you could always put it in a desktop as a slave or just get a new enclosure.

-DG

 

[supermasterpig]

yea it powers up you can hear it spins. hmm well its under warranty for walmart and I could get a 2 tb one in exchange so ill probably do that. I've never had this problem before.

 

[supermasterpig]

Well im giving it one last ditch effort before I hopefully ship it back. im using diskpart and I can select it as drive 1 and but when i type clean it hangs up and wont clean it. I'm going to let it try over night but im guessing its not going to go. Any one think of a better way to reformat it? If i click on it while in explorer or my computer it just freezes the whole computer.

 

[Reime]

Trading it in for a new one sounds like a great deal. Getting a free 2TB.
Never actually had the problem before, but like Sledge said, you could always just toss the HDD inside of it into your computer.

 

[supermasterpig]

Well im running it on a laptop otherwise i would skip the hassle and put in it my computer. Only problem with trading it in is its through walmarts replacement program and I have to send it out through ups so im assuming I have to get a box and blablabla. Looks like if this diskpart doesnt work thats how I will spend my saturday.

 

[Reime]

Haha, yeah. I unno, just drive up to a FedEx store or something, and do it like that. Kinda sucks you can't exactly drive up to a Walmart and do it that way, but stuff happens. I personally don't know whats up with the external, I'm sure i'd probably have a whack at it if i messing with it in real life, but yeah. that 2TB sounds real nice compared to a 500Gb. Only problem i've had computer wise so far is some bsod's here and there, and Killer Xeno Pro and Windows Live messenger not getting along.

 

[supermasterpig]

Yeah I tried to let it clean while i slept but four gours later and nothing still saying try to clean and the externals lights are flashing like its trying to do something. Another weird thing is that it says its got only 451 kb of memory available if u right click on it and press properties. but in diskpart it sholws all 931 ( 1 tb).Ill just switch it out 1 tb for a 2 tb. I dont know if I want to get a WD though. Also would it be worth it to get another 1 tb but its esata? I have one port on my laptop and read that for externals usb are just as fast.

 

[Bill2]

Have you tried running the WD hard drive diagnostic?

 

[supermasterpig]

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

 

[supermasterpig]

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

 

[Bill2]

Try formatting with one of these tools.

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
http://h50178.www5.hp.com/local_drivers/17550/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

 

[supermasterpig]

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?

 

[Bill2]

Try this solution for the device protected error.

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

 

[supermasterpig]

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.

 

[Bill2]

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.

 

[supermasterpig]

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 should i be worried? Should I do the write zeros application and do a full erase? theres nothing on it at the moment though.

 

[Bill2]

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.

 

[supermasterpig]

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?