[Mad_Night]

it was working just fine and then the computer stoped being able to locate it. i tried G: /f in the cmd window but it said that it can't locate drive.
it's a wd western digital, My Book Essential Edition 320 GB. hope someone has an idea.

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assuming that everything is plugged in correctly...have you tried unplugging the drive and plugging it back in? (both power and USB if they're seperate)

also...right click on "my computer" and choose manage, then go to disk manager and see if the drive shows up there...does it? if so right click on the drive in disk manager and choose "assign drive letter" and assign it a letter (try something different than G) and see if it shows up

[dsenette]

assuming that everything is plugged in correctly...have you tried unplugging the drive and plugging it back in? (both power and USB if they're seperate)

also...right click on "my computer" and choose manage, then go to disk manager and see if the drive shows up there...does it? if so right click on the drive in disk manager and choose "assign drive letter" and assign it a letter (try something different than G) and see if it shows up

[Mad_Night]

i unplugged everything and now it's listed in device manager. i right clicked on it and there's no option for assign drive letter. it also doesn't show up when i open my computer.

[diabillic]

Do you have a digital media card reader installed? Ive seen these try to steal drive letter assignments before. If so, unplug it and the drive then plug the drive back in.

[Mad_Night]

digital media card reader? nope

[diabillic]

List all the drives you see in My Computer.

[Mad_Night]

there...
Hard Dicsk Drives
local disk C
local disk D

removable storage
floppy A
dvd-rw E
cd drive F
(my virtual ones) H, I, J, K, L

that waht ya mean?

[diabillic]

Yes.

When you say virtual drives, what do you mean "virtual" drives?

[Mad_Night]

the ones made using magicISO, that let me mount iso files and run them like they where burned.

[diabillic]

Dismount them and reboot. Plug your drive in.

[Mad_Night]

ok i did that. now it shows up and works a little. it just said something about a reformat, but i don't want to loss all the stuff i got on there.

[diabillic]

ok i did that. now it shows up and works a little. it just said something about a reformat, but i don't want to loss all the stuff i got on there.

If Windows is asking you to format the drive when you try to access it, you have a corrupted MFT on that drive. You can try a program called TestDisk to recover your files.

• Please download the Ultimate Boot CD here.
• Please burn the file to a CD using a ISO burner. (If you do not have a ISO burner you can get one Here)
• Please boot to the CD using the disk you just burned.
• Press enter to boot to the disk when prompted.
• Using the up and down arrow keys select File System Tools.
• Select Partition Tools.
• Select TestDisk
• Let it load do not press anything until you get to the screen that says at the top:
  TestDisk 6.6 Data Recovery Utility
• Unless you have more then one hard drive installed take the default option and press enter to proceed.
• Due to you are on a PC select Intel and press enter.
• Select Analise
• The next screen will display the current partition structure. If you System shows anything but No partition is bootable please post back with what it says.
• Click Enter to Proceed.
• The next screen is where TestDisk will analyze your disk.
• After that it will come back with the results. It should show. Under Partition NTFS. With a Star Indicating Primary Bootable.
• Press enter to continue.
• Use the Left and Right arrow keys to select write.
• Type Y and press enter to confirm.
• Remove the disk.
• Restart your computer.

Edited by Cilix, 10 June 2009 - 02:44 PM.

[Mad_Night]

so you want me to format?

[diabillic]

so you want me to format?

No, follow the steps for TestDisk to recover your data first

[dsenette]

indeed.... there seems to be a corruption in the part of your external disk that tells the PC that it's already formatted and has data on it...testdisk has shown to be very reliable at fixing this issue without requiring a format...follow cilix's instructions