Solved Removable storage problem

[scoobydog]

Howdy

I own a 465Gig removable storage device. It is USB powered. I recently plugged it to my smart TV and reformatted it so I could record TV shows directly to it from the TV.

Not to much later I realized that the recording process on the TV was kind of primitive so I decided to change it back to computer formatting.

The problem now is when I plug it back to the computer it says to use this device windows needs to reformat it. I go fine and go through the process on the desktop. It says it is going to make it NTFS and I have selected device presets.

The real problem now is when you initiate the format process another message comes up saying "Windows is unable to reformat the device"

So now I have a device that is dead to me unless you have a solution for me.

Thanks

 

[whs]

That's the problem with smart TVs. They use a format which is incompatible with PCs. I would clean the disk and then try again.

 

[scoobydog]

How do I clean the device and start over if the PC is unable to format it?

 

[whs]

With the clean command of command prompt.

 

[scoobydog]

I found a tutorial on How to run the clean command. Went through the process, selected the disk I wanted to clean and then typed clean all at the DISKPART prompt.

Now all there is is a little flashing underscore cursor there. There is a little blue flashing light on the removable drive. Does this sound right?

Thanks

 

[scoobydog]

Thanks

It didn't look like it worked because it didn't say it had finished the clean command in the command prompt?, strange, but it did something. I managed to retrieve and reformat with Acronis Disk Director. Disk director didn't work on it before "Clean All" command. Now it is all working fine.

Thanks

 

[whs]

Look good. Next time use "Clean" and not "Clean All". The difference is that a simple Clean cleans all the control records whilst a Clean All writes zeros on the whole disk. That is a lengthy process.