Wierd disk error: how to fix my disk?

[jahtao]

Hello all. First post!

I'm a mac person mostly but i have a problem with a Windows external disk and i didn't know where to turn... is this the right place?

I hope someone can help me, I have an unusual disk problem, I'd like to get the disk back to normal working status.

I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE DATA, I just want a working disk.

The disk is currently reported as unallocated space in XP's disk tools but data recovery software can find data on there so I think its a formatting issue and the hardware is fine. I would just create a new partition and format it but the thing with this disk is that when you format it in Windows it appears fine (read/write A-OK) until you unmount it and plug it back in (any machine) at which point it just appears as unallocated space again. Its the same if I try and format it on a Mac. Aaargh.

What to do? Do i run FIX MBR or CheckDisk or something? Do I need to identify bad sectors? I really don't want to pay for any disk tools but i will if i have to.

My memory is hazy but i think when i first formatted this drive, the computer doing the formatting crashed... this could well be the problem. Also the disk came pre-formatted as a Mac disk (something to do with FW800 support being standard on Mac OS X i think) so maybe this caused Windows some trouble.

Really would appreciate any ideas, or even good/better places to ask these types of questions, thanks!

Matt

[-pops-]

Try a "low level" format. You should be able to get software for your brand of drive from the manufacturers web site or from:

http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/low-level-format.html

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatUtilities-c.html

http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/03/hard-disk-low-level-format/

This should restore the drive to factory condition and you can then re-format to a state suitable for your operating system.

[jahtao]

Great! Thanks, I'll let you know how i get on.