"You need to format the Disk" popup

[Ghostowl1]

Recently starting getting this popup on my Seagate 5TB external drive when plugged in to my laptop via USB 3.0. The drive itself seems OK and after a lengthy test using Sea Tools no problems were found.

So why do I keep getting this error? It usually appears in threes in quick succession.

Is the drive bad?

 

[samuria]

Welcome too the forum. can you post a screen shot from disk manger showing the drive details it sounds like it may have gone raw loosing it parition.

 

[Megahertz07]

Don't try to fix it. You will get specialized help.
As Samuria suggested, post a screen shot from disk manger (expand the columns so we can read them).

 

[jumanji]

Hi Ghostowl1,

Welcome to Seven Forums.

Post the following screenshots with only your faulty drive plugged in ( Please remove all other external HDDs /Flash drives)

1. Windows Disk Management: Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

2. Download, install and run version 9.1 from MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 10.2.2 Download for Windows / Old Versions / FileHorse.com (Yes, only version 9.1 and not 10.x.x) Post a screenshot of how your drive looks like in it. ( The very first screen after you launch it)

Upload Screenshots: Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums - Windows 7 Help Forums

How old is your Seagate 5TB external drive? Model Number/Name? Portable or Desktop? How many partitions were there? Do you know whether it came as an MBR drive or GPT drive? ( Older ones can be MBR and newer ones GPT)

 

[Ghostowl1]

Thanks for the help so far.

Drive is called an expansion desktop drive, it must be about 3 years old now at least. I tried connecting the drive up again today and whilst I haven't noticed the popup in question so far, I've lost faith in the drives reliability and already started backing up the most important data to cloud storage.

Screen shots as requested.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Megahertz07]

How come the CD ROM 0 is showing a 2G raw disk? Is it a Linux disk?

 

[Ghostowl1]

Is it a Linux disk?

No... that's a failed burn of a data disc (a separate problem for another time...)

My drive is still giving me the Format popup again today. Disconnecting the drive and plugging it into another USB port temporarily solves the problem.

Would the problem be because the drive is down to 1% capacity? It also takes a long time to display items in a folder (detail view), the green progress bar taking ages to complete. It's impossible to stream from the drive.

 

[jumanji]

Your HDD may be failing. Bad sectors. Hope you have backed up all data in it.

Check the health of your drive with Seatools for Windows.

https://www.seagate.com/in/en/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-win-master/

How to use SeaTools for Windows