bump

Julls,
I got the same message on my seagate ext. and had to replace it (was under warranty). I think something got corrupted on the disk and messed up the file allocation table. My guess is you need data recovery if it's not backed up. Hope drive is under warranty for replacement, though that doesn't help with data.

Sounds like the table of contents got wiped or corrupted. Whatever you do, don't format it yet or add any files to it, get a recovery program and you'll probably be able to get most of the data back.

I'm going to take it to a computer repair store, and see what they can do with it. I just hope I will not lose anything.

Geek Squad wants $129 to look at it. I'll look around some more though. If its going to cost something around that I might as well just buy another drive and start over with what I will have lost. I think only about 80-100 gigs of data on that drive was not backed up out of 400GB.

Konix, how much would a recovery program run?

Well, they usually run $50-100, but, *ahem*, like most programs, if you search around and look hard enough..... (I don't condemn or condone piracy, but what you do is your own business)

you may be able to hit up download.com and find a freeware app.

maybe i need to start a data recovery company for hard drive reliant djs. :-)

I rather just have someone look at it for me. If I go out and buy one of those programs and it does not work, then I'm out $50-$100. I'm not sure. If I can't get anyone to look at, then I'll try one of those programs. Who makes the best one?

I have used R-Studio for recovery on multiple occasions. Worked very well for me. Good luck.

Thanks ABM!

Haha funny.

And most recovery programs have free demo versions to try, this way you can at least see what it can recover and get back. But the demos usually don't allow you to actually "recover" the data unless you purchase the full version.

what - no back up ??


I have also saved mad data from R-Studio, cept I paid for it.

they don't make hard drives like they used to! ;-) R-Studio is money well spent.

I think you just need to initialize the disk under disk management. Once you do this, the files should show up. I had made a backup of my whole hard drive and put it in another computer and I got the same thing. I wondered where all my files went and why it was asking me to format the drive. Went to disk management, initialized the hd, then it was assigned a drive letter and all the files showed up.

How do I get to disk management?

Control Panel, Computer Management, Disk Management

That shouldn't be the issue though...If the drive was in use in a USB case, it's definately already been initialized. Sounds like it was dropped or something and that's how the plastic broke off, or possibly when the plastic broke, if it was in use, it sent a shock through the disk. Definately sounds like a failure, however, another thing to try is putting the drive in another usb case and seeing if you can get it to work that way on another computer.

There are even free recovery CDs which can recover the partition table.

free+legal.

I have XP Pro. when I go to control panel it gives me: Appearance and Themes, Network and Internet Conections, Add or Remove Programs, Sounds..., Performance and Maintenance, and some other stuff.

I don't see "Computer Management". Sorry if I sound like such a noob.

Thanks nik, I'll get with you if it comes to that to get more information.

I have been a bit lazy with my backups. I have everything except about 80-100GB backed up out of 400GB.

If I can just get the data off this drive, I'll never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever be lazy again when it comes to backups.

I still don't see it. I looked all around too.

Julls, I ran around the whole house to find a laptop with an english version of Windows XP installed... hope you appreciate it.

Control Panel -> Administative Tools -> Computer Management

house = office

Switch your control panel to "Classic View" first.

Damn nik, thanks a billion!


Ok heres what Disk Management is saying: It says my 400GB drive is only 31.50GB big. WTF?

Anyone have a clue what to do now? How do I initialize the drive like D-Twizzle said?

Just right click the disk you see in disk management and choose Initialize Disk. If it gives you that option to initialize the disk, it should fix the problem. If that option isn't there, then it probably won't.

Ok, I right clicked on that drive in disk management. There is no option to initialize the disk. So i'm kinda fucked now right?

What if I select "Change Drive Letter and Paths" or "Mark Partition as Active"?

Go a little bit left of where you clicked to where it says "Disk 1" or "Disk 0" and right click there inside there. It should give you a different menu option.

Nope same menu.

That sounds more like your BIOS of your PC needs to be updated cause it cant handle very large disks.

How do I update the BIOS?

how old is the desktop pc? what kind of pc is it? usually you can find bios updates at the manufacturers site.

I wanna say its about 4 years old, and its a Medion. Here is what it says for the specs: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz 2.67GHz, 256 MB of RAM.

Ok, I went to the Medion US website, and searched for my computer and found this: www1.medion.de

I'm not sure if I understand how to do that.

Sorry about that Julls, I left out administrative tools.

Yea, it definately sounds like the drive is fine, but your computer can't handle a disk that large.

Updating bios is a pain in the ass...If I were you, I'd just go to fry's if you have one local, buy a new USB case, and put your drive in there. It should work just fine. You can get a case for like 40 bucks.

Its cool, I appreciate everyone's help with this. I wish I could just have that drive work in my computer. Uhhhh. If I were to update the BIOS, you think that drive would work then? I guess I'll start looking at cases maybe.

Yea, you're gonna need a new case anyway unless you don't plan on using it as an external anymore. If you manage to get the bios updated, the drive should work in your computer though.

Hmmmm. I'm kinda wierd when it comes to stuff like this. In my head I'm thinking that I no longer "trust" this drive to go out on the road, even though I'm 97% sure this drive is fine. The min. I doubt a piece of gear or it goofs up its gone.

I'll see if I can get a computer shop to update the BIOS. I wonder what they will charge?

Julls -

It's not like you know a computer guy or anything.... Either bring it to me or I'll head that way this weekend. I'll bring a spare case with me to put the drive in and work on gettng the data recovered.

I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the computer not recognizing the size of the drive. It's not hard to resolve.

Just let me know what you want me to do. If nothing else if I can get the drive from you I can put it in a machine here and recover the data from it for you.

BTW, 32GB is the max size some machines are capable of working with...
www.dewassoc.com

BTW, my rates are reasonable.... bring beer. ;-)

It looks like it'll be good news Julls. I bet on the BIOS update doing the trick from what you said about it reading the drive size. Update the BIOS, copy off the data, and run a checkdisk to check the drive. Also some drive makers have tools on their sites to test drives for problems.

****ISSUE RESOLVED****

not to rub it in... but after that scare, how often are you going to be backing your ISH up??

Twice a week.

atta boy.... LOL - everytime I add, I connect up the backup and let it do it's thing overnight.

so where do you guys keep your "other" music, the stuff you wouldn't EVER play at a gig?

It's on the same drive. I color code like crazy - heaters red- good blue- so on.... One of the BIG reasons I keep my stuff backed up.

Yup, thats going to be me new way to do it.



On another drive, but alot of my "other" music gets played at gigs too except my Gabber (LOL).



Hmmm, I should look into doing that. I would have never thought of that, but I think it would take forever with the amount of tracks that I have.

Sitting down at one sitting and doing that, no way. While goofin off, I'll dig for tracks and when if I do load them up, I color code them if they're worthy. While playing a set out, if the crowd takes to it, I spot the color. So, I can just sort and know I have killers on hand.

This is especially helpful w/ genres that I'm not familiar with at all.. Like some of the newer rock, people request it, I play it, and usually assign a color to it. How can your selection not get stronger as time goes by.

Yea, color tagging is huge for me. I'll sit and do a batch now and then too, because if it's not tagged, I'm probably not familiar with it yet, which means sitting and color tagging stuff lets me familiarize myself with different music.

good to hear things are good...quick review Julls..what exactly happened and what was the fix again?

He sort of had an
eye-dee-ten-tee error.... or something like that... I like to call them 'Homer Simpson' moments... you know, where you suddenly scream 'DOH!'

But it's an easy mistake to make because of the way the drive was marked...

Hint: It had to do with the LBA 32GB limit jumper...

Well, like I said in my first post, the plastic thing in the USB connector came out, and did not allow me to use it. So I pulled the drive out of the case, and changed the jumper from "master" to "slave" or so I thought.

I didn't notice it, but I ended up putting the drive into "LBA 32GB Slave" which is why my drive never showed up and said it needed to be formatted. When I changed the jumper, I was looking at the chart and saw "slave" and didn't pay attention.

I ended up buying another one of those drives with the same case, (I'm a "match" freak, everything has to look the same or match when I gig) and a smaller drive and pulled out the drive and put in the 400GB in its place and changed the jumper back to master. Everything works again, and my drive is fine. I also have a spare 160GB drive in my desktop now, which to me is tiny (lol).

ahhh, yes... i hate those jumper thingies... especially if you loose em, or loose the config diag (manual) when it doesn't indicate on the drive itself.