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General discussion

My computer says i need to reformat my external before use?

Jan 5, 2011 9:10PM PST

Hi, can somebody please help me, I am definitely a computer newbie and i have a WD 1.5 Terabyte external hard drive with alot of my personal files on it that all of a sudden can not be accessed by my laptop? when its plugged in to any of the 3 USB ports, nothing comes up on my computer until i unplug the external from the laptop and it says it must be reformatted before i can use it? it can be read on my TV when its plugged into its USB port but not on my laptop? can anyone help please? as i need programes from my laptop to access alot of my files on the external.

also it has done this before, but magically was back to normal after i retried it a few times, but this time it doesnt seem to want to return to its normal state. if that helps.

Thanks guys.

Compaq Presario CQ61 Notebook PC / 406TU
Windows 7

Discussion is locked

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Re: reformat
Jan 5, 2011 9:19PM PST

If it works on the TV and not on your laptop, I'd start trying with a few other laptops or PC's. One of them might work and let you get your data out.

If no luck, read the sticky of the storage forum: http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7588_102-354911.html?tag=threadListing;forum-threads
It's all about data recovery.

And, yes, we see a lot of people here that think an external drive is suitable for storage of the only copy of their data. It isn't. It's quite useful as a means to transport data across computers that aren't networked. And it's quite useful as a quick (but not the only!) backup medium for data on your internal hard disk. And that's about all it offers.
Those people with those wrong thought often lose their data or they pay a lot of money to a professional data recovery company.

Kees

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Possible fix
Jan 6, 2011 1:25AM PST

Buy an ext. USB hub powered by AC. Then connect to your laptop USB then connect ext. HD to that ext. powered USB. if it works, great if not, not good. Laptops are prone to power issues at USB ports. No matter what the cause, due to USB repeated heavy power demands and ext. HD is one of them, it may fail at any given time. I also suggest you clean the USB connections and inspect them for possible damage. Also, you may want to try the ext. HD on a rear USB port of a desktop PC to help recover files. I exclude any actual failure of the ext. HD itself as they do fail. If you've read these forums its a persistent issue to have ext. HD failure of any brand.

tada -----Willy Happy