problem with a WD external 1gb hd

[kidrobot]

ive recently bought an external 1tb wd hd my book and am having a problem accessing folders.

theres 2 folders that i cant open, i get a this drive is not formatted do you want to format it now error when i try to open either one.
both folders contain movies together are approximately 700gb in size and are the biggest folders on the hd. theres a few other folder with movies in them that work fine/able to access.. almost 2-300gb of stuff i can still open..

so i wanted to ask is the hd f'd up or can i do something to fix this issue?
if theres nothing i can do will i be able to recover those files?

any help on this would be much appreciated

thank you ^^

 

[goombawaho]

What operating system and service pack are you running? How did you get the files on that external drive - from the same computer you are having problems accessing them with or a different one?

You may want to convert the drive to NTFS if it's still FAT which (for some reason) WD seems to give you out of the box.

http://www.ntfs.com/quest3.htm

Change the drive letter to your external drive letter - for example:

C:\> CONVERT F: /fs:ntfs

 

[kidrobot]

im running xp pro sp3.
the files were orignially on a different pc and transferred to this hard drive months ago, i havent added anything to it in a while only just started using it on this pc and it has been working previously for 3 months or so.
i tried it on a different pc and laptop but still having the same problem.

its already NTFS

 

[kjv1611]

Um, kidrobot, for a full answer, you might need to give full conditions. For instance, you said you're currently running Windows XP SP3, but what was the older computer running? Also, you said you tried on a couple other machines? What OS is each of them running?

Either way, if you're mainly looking to recover your data, there are a couple of programs that will likely do well enough for you:

GetDataBack

Active File Recovery

Active Undelete

Active Partition Recovery

Once you get your data off, you can scan the hard drive to ensure it's in working order with the manufacturer's diagnostics... you can find all/most of those on the http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.htmlUltimate Boot CD[/url

 

[goombawaho]

It doesn't sound like a hard drive problem especially as the drive is new.

 

[kjv1611]

Doesn't sound like it, but worth checking. New ones go bad as well, unfortunately.

It does sound like an OS/file storage format issue to me as well as what you were first getting at, but I figured it's worth mentioning the other just in case.

Oh, I messed my last link up. It should have been:
Ultimate Boot CD

 

[kidrobot]

sorry it took me so long to reply, my pc died on me ><
had to get it fixed only got it back a few days ago.

so i ended up buying another 1tb external and ran a few different file recovery programs.
in the end i managed to recover about 95%+ of my files using the software.
took 15+ hrs to recover and a further 15+hrs to save them but am very happy that i got almost all my stuff back.
in the future i will double backup my stuff and i might even back it up onto cd as well lol

still dont know what the problem was with my other hd!!

anyways thanks for all your input guys

 

[kjv1611]

You probably already realized this, but I'd highly suggest you backup to DVD as apposed to CD, and more precisely, DVD-R disks. Reasons:

1. DVDs are "deeper" than CDs, generally more durable, and more scratch resistent, just b/c of the way they're made.

2. DVDs hold a LOT more data - 4.7GB vs 650 to 700MB on a CD, so 1 DVD = around 7 CDs

Price? Buy them in bulk - 50 or 100 packs (spindles), and the cost is pretty much about the same. Sometimes, they are exactly the same, and sometimes you'll pay a few cents extra per disk for the DVD.

So, let's say you pay $20 for 100 DVDs or $15 for 100 CDs.

20 cents per DVD, 15 cents per CD.

On a per GB cost, that's $0.04 per GB for DVD,
$0.22 per GB for CD

 

[kidrobot]

yep i'm going to do just that.
ive backed up my most important stuff onto another hard drive and will backup everything also onto dvd when i get some time this weekend.

just trying to figure out now what was the original problem with my hd and if i can just format it and use it again.
i dont think its dead since its brand new and hasnt been used much at all. might take it to a shop and get some pro advice lol

thanks again