Solved external drive HELP need please

[carlnw1975]

hi, i`m new here and i need some major help. i put a load of files/music/videos etc on my external drive as i was upgrading from xp pro to windows 7.
after installing windows 7 (a complete fresh install) i can`t get into my drive and it is asking me to format it to be able to use it. i know formating the drive will wipe everything on it and i really need to get the files back. i didn`t think upgrading windows could be such a pain in the a$$ regarding the drive.
the drive is a seagate expansion external drive 1TB.
any help to solve this would be totally epic

 

[whs]

What is the status of the drive/partition in Disk Management. Does it say "RAW" ??

 

[carlnw1975]

What is the status of the drive/partition in Disk Management. Does it say "RAW" ??

yes it`s showing as RAW

 

[whs]

Hmm, many people had this problem. I have not seen a simple solution yet. Maybe a live Linux CD can deal with it and transfer the data over.

 

[carlnw1975]

i`m giving icare data recovery disk a shot at the minute, gonna take about 20 minutes to finish the scan so i`ll report back when it`s done

 

[essenbe]

If that does not work, try Recuva. But first I would try diskpart. Open an elevated command prompt ( click start, type cmd in the dearch box, right click on cmd and select run as administrator) In the box that comes up, type diskpart, press enter and in a few seconds the window will respond by saying diskpart. Type list disk and it will list all disks connected to your computer. type select disk # (where # is the number of the disk you are having issues with). press enter. it will respond with disk # is the selected disk. Type assign and press enter. If this works, it will assign it a drive letter. Type exit and press enter twice to close the window.In that case you can open it with explorer and look at the files inside.

 

[Corazon]

Good tip essenbe - but it won't work if the OS only sees a RAW partition with no recognized filesystem... (in fact, assigning a drive letter will most likely throw up a prompt to format the new drive.)

 

[essenbe]

It worked last time in the same situation with an XP drive. Maybe it will work this time.

 

[Corazon]

Hmm, interesting. I see where you're going with this...the OS simply misidentifying the partition as "raw".
Learned something new.

 

[essenbe]

Hmm, interesting. I see where you're going with this...the OS simply misidentifying the partition as "raw".
Learned something new.

Learning something happens every day to all of us on SF. But, seriously there have been quite a few problems with drives taken out of XP machines and windows wouldn't recognize it. I don't know why That solution worked that time, but but it does not work all the time. XP uses NTFS file system mostly but can use FAT. Windows can read either, so why is this problem happening?

 

[carlnw1975]

If that does not work, try Recuva. But first I would try diskpart. Open an elevated command prompt ( click start, type cmd in the dearch box, right click on cmd and select run as administrator) In the box that comes up, type diskpart, press enter and in a few seconds the window will respond by saying diskpart. Type list disk and it will list all disks connected to your computer. type select disk # (where # is the number of the disk you are having issues with). press enter. it will respond with disk # is the selected disk. Type assign and press enter. If this works, it will assign it a drive letter. Type exit and press enter twice to close the window.In that case you can open it with explorer and look at the files inside.

when i get to `Type assign and press enter` on your tut i get `There is no volume specified. Please select a volume and try again.
am i doing something wrong?

 

[essenbe]

No, probably not. Check the connections to the drive and try the tut again. this time when after you do the list disk and it says disk # is the selected disk, type list partition and press enter. If it lists partitions, type select partition 1 and press enter, then try assign. if that works you need to do it for each partition it lists. This may not work, but it is worth a try.

 

[seavixen32]

Will trying in Safe Mode be of any benefit?

 

[essenbe]

Will trying in Safe Mode be of any benefit?

The honest answer is, I don't know. But it won't hurt either. The truth is that it shouldn't be doing this to begin with, in my opinion. We have had several threads with people putting XP drives in windows 7 machines and 7 not recognizing them, and it should.

 

[writhziden]

This may be a permissions issue. I've had this problem myself, and right clicking the drive in My Computer, clicking properties, going to the Security tab, clicking Edit, and adding Users to Group or user names: fixed it for me.

Edit: Group or user names: Administrators, SYSTEM, and Users should be listed for the drive to work.

Edit 2: Fixed procedure to include clicking properties after right clicking the drive.

 

[essenbe]

This may be a permissions issue. I've had this problem myself, and right clicking the drive in My Computer, going to the Security tab, clicking Edit, and adding Users to Group or user names: fixed it for me.

Edit: Group or user names: Administrators, SYSTEM, and Users should be listed for the drive to work.

That may be the next hurdle, but I don't think it will show up in my computer without a drive letter.

 

[writhziden]

This may be a permissions issue. I've had this problem myself, and right clicking the drive in My Computer, going to the Security tab, clicking Edit, and adding Users to Group or user names: fixed it for me.

Edit: Group or user names: Administrators, SYSTEM, and Users should be listed for the drive to work.

That may be the next hurdle, but I don't think it will show up in my computer without a drive letter.

You're right, I should have added that. The user should be able to go into Disk Management and assign it a drive letter after making it active.

 

[writhziden]

If what I said above doesn't work, look at Free Format Recovery Software | Recover files after format free | iCare Format Recovery Free I have the paid version of this software and was able to recover files from a RAW drive before.

 

[carlnw1975]

No, probably not. Check the connections to the drive and try the tut again. this time when after you do the list disk and it says disk # is the selected disk, type list partition and press enter. If it lists partitions, type select partition 1 and press enter, then try assign. if that works you need to do it for each partition it lists. This may not work, but it is worth a try.

assign doesn`t do anything this is what i get

 

[carlnw1975]

This may be a permissions issue. I've had this problem myself, and right clicking the drive in My Computer, going to the Security tab, clicking Edit, and adding Users to Group or user names: fixed it for me.

Edit: Group or user names: Administrators, SYSTEM, and Users should be listed for the drive to work.

when i right click the drive i cannot see a security tab in the drop down?