How To Fix "Format Hard Drive Disk" Error

I have two years of my most precious data stored on a Toshiba external hard disk drive (HDD). I turned my laptop on and plugged in my hard drive and to my surprise I got an error message that said that Windows could not read my disk and that I need to format it first. If you are receiving this message, DO NOT FORMAT YOUR DISK! If you format the disk, ALL OF YOUR FILES, PHOTOS, AND DATA STORED ON IT WILL BE DELETED! I spent two weeks searching the internet for a solution to my problem. I tried every piece of advice I came across. Here is the step by step instructions that fixed my "Format Disk" error message.

1. Attach and power up the external HDD and then click on your Start Button. Type "disk management" in the Search box. Click on "Create and Format Disk Partitions"  This will take you to the "Disk Management" program.
2. Disk Management will tell you valuable information about your drives. The first thing you want to check is to be sure that the "Status" of all your Drives are labeled as "Healthy." 
3. Compare your HDD and your "C" drive. Is your HDD formatted in FAT32 or RAW while the system is formatted in NTFS
4. The external HDD and the system (or "C" drive) must be formatted the same. (My HDD was reading as RAW while my C: drive was reading NTFS)
5. I was at a loss as to how to fix this so I took the advice of 2 other people who had posted solutions to this problem. I don't know which one was the one that actually fixed my hard drive error or whether it was a combination of the two so below is both solutions in the order I did them.

SOLUTION #1

• Connect your hard disk drive to your computer and turn it on.
• Click on "Start" button
• Type "cmd" in the search box and right click on "cmd"
• Select "Run as administrator"
• a command prompt will appear that says C:/windows/system32>
• You are going to need to know what drive letter is assigned to your hard disk drive (HDD). To locate this information, click on the "Disk Management" icon that should be still open in your system tray and located the letter assigned to your HDD. If you closed "Disk Management," follow step 1 to reopen it.
• Type: "chkdsk (your hard disk drive letter): /f
  • for example: My hard disk drive was assigned the letter "f". This is what I should have:
    • C:/windows/system32>chkdsk f: /f

• This is going to check your hard disk drive for any possible errors and attempt to fix them. I then immediately followed solution #2.

SOLUTION #2

I had read earlier about some free software that I could download called EaseUS Data Recovery which is designed to recover and restore lost data on hard disk drives. They have a paid version as well as a free version. I downloaded the free version.

• Copy and paste the following URL into your web browser and click enter: http://www.easeus.com/data-recovery-software/
• Download the free version of the software.
• Launch "EaseUS Data Recovery" wizard.
• Follow the on screen instructions.

Note: The free version will only allow a limited amount of data to be recovered. I was at work and had a slow internet connection. After 2 hours, I noticed that my files were only 37% complete. I got tired of waiting for my files to be download so I shut down my computer in the middle of having my files transferred. I then restarted my computer with my hard disk drive powered on and connected. To my astonishment, my hard disk drive worked perfectly! No more format disk error message! All my files, photos, videos, and data was still in tack. PROBLEM SOLVED!

I honestly think that this software restored my hard drive disk from being in a "RAW" format to being in a "NTSF" format before it attempted to download my files and that's what actually fixed my problem. However, I'm not positive that's what happened. All I know is my hard disk drive is fixed and my data is safe. Needless to say, I IMMEDIATELY BACKED UP MY HARD DISK DRIVE to my desktop when I got home.

I hope this will be of help to you.

Sincerely,

S. Kelly