Travel Technology - Help - BackUp Drive Showing Not Formatted

Is there any hope for me?

My Maxtor backup drive - less than 150 of 250GB available (before this) - seemed to suddenly freeze and show as an unformatted drive. Is the data lost and I should give this up, reformatting it and starting over or is there hope?

The information for the most part is stored elsewhere but it will take hours and hours to recreate what I had on the drive. Any help is appreciated - Thanks

Never seen that.

There are two MBR. You might try the backup copy.

If you must have the data, a data recovery service will recover it for a price.

Never seen that.

There are two MBR. You might try the backup copy.

If you must have the data, a data recovery service will recover it for a price.
What's MBR?

I think the disk crashed or lost something. I'm hoping cooling it off overnight might bring it back to life, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. :(

Is this an external drive?

For some reason the interfaces used in most external drives are garbage and are prone to dying in something like a year. The drive itself is usually fine and if removed from the enclosure the data is still there. (Note that this applies only to USB or Firewire drives. Network Attached Storage devices can't be simply stripped from their enclosure.)


Note that personally I would *NOT* reformat the drive, period. If it truly failed then it would go in the nearest trash can unless it was going to data recovery. If it is just the interface it would be remounted and the interface would go in the trash can.

It's an external drive - Yes. I'm not sure what the interface is here, is it the drivers/application that came with the drive? In that case, I actually don't use their software beyond recognizing the drive, I connect direct to the drive and manually move the files to the external drive.

MBR - Master Boot Record.

I have not found USB drive interfaces to fail, but this is easy to check. You can buy an enclosure for a USB external drive, remove your drive from its box, the move it to the new enclosure to see if the problem disappears.

However I must say with respect that if you do not already know how to do all of this yourself, then you are likely hosed. Throw the drive in the trash and move on. The only other alternative is to send it to a data recovery service. If it has sensitive information on it, be careful about how you throw it away,

I've been wanting a small passport drive but didn't think I needed it or it was worth spending the money right now. I guess I now have the excuse to get one :(

MBR - Master Boot Record.

I have not found USB drive interfaces to fail, but this is easy to check. You can buy an enclosure for a USB external drive, remove your drive from its box, the move it to the new enclosure to see if the problem disappears.

However I must say with respect that if you do not already know how to do all of this yourself, then you are likely hosed. Throw the drive in the trash and move on. The only other alternative is to send it to a data recovery service. If it has sensitive information on it, be careful about how you throw it away,

Just because he doesn't know how to do it himself doesn't mean he couldn't find someone who could do it.

I agree completely. Thus the suggestion to use a data recovery service.

I had a drive do something similar once, and I put it in the freezer for a few hours. This brought it back to life so that I could get the data off of it.

Just because he doesn't know how to do it himself doesn't mean he couldn't find someone who could do it.
'she' ;) ... and yes, I have friends who do have the necessary clue. I'll wipe the drive one way or the other before its dumped, but it's clearly no longer a dependable backup drive.

I had a drive do something similar once, and I put it in the freezer for a few hours. This brought it back to life so that I could get the data off of it.

The old "contract the bearings so they spin up" trick. This just isn't as useful these days as it once was so I'm glad it worked for you. I do hope you wrapped it up to prevent condensation?

Yes. And I was also very surprised it worked.

Is this an external drive?

For some reason the interfaces used in most external drives are garbage and are prone to dying in something like a year. The drive itself is usually fine and if removed from the enclosure the data is still there. (Note that this applies only to USB or Firewire drives. Network Attached Storage devices can't be simply stripped from their enclosure.)


Note that personally I would *NOT* reformat the drive, period. If it truly failed then it would go in the nearest trash can unless it was going to data recovery. If it is just the interface it would be remounted and the interface would go in the trash can.

+1

I've seen this twice on friends' external drives. The drive was unrecognized, but once removed from the external housing, the internal drive was fine, as was the data. Certainly worth a try, and you're no worse off as to future options. Either internally mount the drive or buy a IDE/SATA to USB cable (about $12-$20) and connect the raw drive to a USB port.

I agree completely. Thus the suggestion to use a data recovery service.

But having someone local try to read it in another enclosure would be a lot cheaper and faster.

I had a drive do something similar once, and I put it in the freezer for a few hours. This brought it back to life so that I could get the data off of it.

No--if the freezer trick works then the drive would have shown as unreadable, not unformatted.




For those of you not aware of what's going on here: The problem is the bearings sticking. It's a reasonably common failure mode in a drive that's been in use for some years. The drive is working fine, you turn it off and when you turn it back on it can't be read.

If you don't plan to send it off to data recovery it's a trick worth trying. Put the drive in something basically airtight (a ziploc back is fine) and stick it in the freezer for an hour or two. Be careful of moisture--trying this in humid conditions isn't the best idea.

*IF* the problem is a sticking bearing this will likely let the drive spin up. Note that it is *NOT* a fix, when you turn it off it's going to quit working again. Get your data off while you can.

+1

I've seen this twice on friends' external drives. The drive was unrecognized, but once removed from the external housing, the internal drive was fine, as was the data. Certainly worth a try, and you're no worse off as to future options. Either internally mount the drive or buy a IDE/SATA to USB cable (about $12-$20) and connect the raw drive to a USB port.

It's happened to me personally more than once.

The first go-to solution for any problem involving unexpected loss of data on any disk drive should be SpinRite (http://www.grc.com/cs/prepurch.htm), and prudent people who value their data should own a license.

The first go-to solution for any problem involving unexpected loss of data on any disk drive should be SpinRite (http://www.grc.com/cs/prepurch.htm), and prudent people who value their data should own a license.

If this is an interface failure SpinRite will do no good at all.

Interfaces have no moving parts except for the connectors, gently pull the drive out of the external housing and push it back in.

Drives do have moving parts. More likely it's the drive.

Interfaces have no moving parts except for the connectors, gently pull the drive out of the external housing and push it back in.

Drives do have moving parts. More likely it's the drive.

I've had many interfaces burn out over the years.