<p>i got an external 160 gb iomega harddrive a few months ago. i put all my movies/photos/data/etc... onto it. i always used my usb cable/port to transfer data and i NEVER used my firewall port/cable. so today i heard that firewall is faster so i decided to try to plug in the harddrive using the firewall cable into the computers firewall port. so when i click on the drive letter which corresponds to the external hard drive, a message pops up: "your harddrive is not formatted. do you want to format it now. "yes/no"." i know that if u format it, everything will get deleted so i clicked no. and when i click "no" it just brings me back to the "drives" screen and i cant access the data on the external harddrive. i am really worried that everything on there will get deleted. any advice or comments? thanks.</p>
<p>wait.... how is your hard drive not formatted if you're storing info on it?</p>
<p>Well anyway, you could upload all your movies/photos/data/etc. onto another storage medium via USB, re-format the hard drive using the firewire (it's firewire, not firewall) port, and then put everything back on.</p>
<p>Personally, external hard drives connected to USB ports are fast enough for me, I don't see the need for firewire.</p>
<p>Then again, I am someone who puts up with multiple 7 year olds and doesn't mind anything more advanced than 4200 rpm hard drive or an outdated low-end processor, so I guess I'm a patient fellow :)</p>
<p>sorry about the firewall/firewire thing. i saw firewall, the movie, a couple hours ago so i kind of had that in my head.</p>
<p>when u say "upload all data onto another storage medium via USB" do u mean connecting one harddrive to another "literally"? or do u mean connect one external hard drive into the computers usb and then another hard drive into the other usb and then copy stuff from one to the other?</p>
<p>from what you are telling me, I believe that there is no problem when transferring data between the external hard drive and the computer when you're using the USB.</p>
<p>in clarification of what I just said: transfer the data from the external drive to your computer, format the harddrive using the firewire port, and then re-transfer back?</p>
<p>It should work</p>
<p>what i mean is that i cant view ANY files when i double click on "G: Iomega External Hard Drive". when i click on this a message pops up saying "Your harddrive is not formatted. would u like to format it now?" and i click no and it brings me back to the previous screen.</p>
<p>Don't panic!!!
The data can still be recovered.</p>
<p>Any computer store should be able to take the data of the drive and put it on a DVD. It might be very pricey though.
Remember, when a computer reformats a hard drive the reference to the file is removed. The file is not completely deleted until a new file overwrites.
Also, try pluging your hardrive into a friends computer with the USB cable. You might be albe to transfer data it then.</p>
<p>^i tried plugging the harddrive into my other computer and the same message pops up. then i clicked on properties on the external hardddrive icon to see the memory used up and it says "0 bytes out of 0 bytes used"....help!!!!</p>
<p>there are two usb's, 1.1 = slow, 2.0 = 480 mb/s. there are two firewire, 400 and 800 mb/s. if you are at 400 mb/s or above that is plenty fast. ive been looking for external hard drives and i can't find one that is only 1.1, so you are probably using usb 2.0, which means it doesn't really matter. hard drives write at a much slower speed anyway.</p>
<p>You need someone who understands data recovery to help you out with this. There are companies that do this kind of work, but they tend to be very, very expensive. If you can find a knowledgeable computer person in a computer repair shop, etc., they may be able to help. Be a little cautious - sometimes, the act of attempting to recover data can further scramble the data if it is unsuccessful.</p>
<p>so even if my data on my external harddrive "could" be deleted, there is still a chance that i recover my 90 gb of data?</p>
<p>b u m p</p>
<p>Let me see if I understand this:</p>
<ul>
<li>You have a desktop machine running XP</li>
<li>Your main hard drive is C:</li>
<li>Your D: is either a second hard drive or a recovery partition on your C: drive</li>
<li>Your E: is a dvd or cd-rom optical drive</li>
<li>Your F: is a dvd burner</li>
<li>Your external hard drive is G:</li>
<li>You have several USB ports (either versions 1.1 or 2)</li>
<li>You have a Firewire connection (either 400/800)</li>
</ul>
<p>Does this sound right?</p>
<p>Turn your computer off and unplug your external hard drive. Turn the computer back on and let it boot up to your Windows screen. Turn your computer off and plug your external hard drive back into your Firewire port. Turn your computer back on. You should see a message at the bottom right of your screen saying that a "new device" has been found. Let the computer "install" your hard drive. Once the installation process is complete, click on "Start" and "My Computer". You should see your external hard drive as "G:". Click on G: to view your files. If G: does not appear or you get a message that the drive isn't formatted, turn everything off and use your USB cable to plug in your hard drive and repeat the process.</p>
<p>In theory, using either the USB or the Firewire port should make no difference if the hard drive was properly formatted when you installed it first... If you get the same result when using your USB connection, you have some serious problems with your hard drive...</p>
<p>Let me know what happens.</p>
<p>drives:
a=flopy
c=local disk
d=dvd/cdrw
e=external dvd burner
f=local disk(external hard drive)</p>
<p>i followed all your steps and both ways (firewire and usb) the f drive pops up. i double click on the icon and this message pops up:
<a href="http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c328/lbioche/042b945f.png%5B/url%5D">http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c328/lbioche/042b945f.png</a></p>
<p>i click "no" and it brings me back to the original "my computer" screen.</p>
<p>what should i do?</p>
<p>Find a friend with a computer running XP and plug in your external hard drive and see if it is recognized and installed. Click on your drive and see if your files are there...</p>
<p>If the drive works on your friend's machine, then there's something wrong with your computer. If the drive doesn't work on another XP computer, then your drive is the problem.</p>
<p>The Iomega drive comes with a formating software cd that you did run when you first plugged the drive in, right?</p>
<p>^i tried the external harddrive on my other computer and the same problem is happening.</p>
<p>the drive came with an installation cd and a data backup program. i hadnt installed the data backup cd b/c it would take alot of memory and i thought it wasnt necessary ( but now it is!).</p>
<p>what next?</p>
<p>Good news: Your external hard drive still works.
Bad news: Your boot sector may have been corrupted by a virus.</p>
<p>Down load this anti-virus program and run it to see if you have viruses on your PC. When you run the program, see if it recognizes your external drive. Either way, run the program and see if it helps.</p>
<p>If this fails, you may have little choice but to format your drive and start over again. Do the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Start Control Panel </li>
<li>Select Administrative Tools and select Computer Management. </li>
<li>In Computer Management, double click on Storage. </li>
<li>Under Storage you should now see Disk Management, click on this icon. </li>
<li>Within this window you should see the drives being detected by Windows and their status.
6.If your external drive's status is "unhealthy", right click on it to "initialize" the drive.
7.Once the drive has been Initialized, right-click the drive and click "New Partition". In the partition wizard you should be asked the Partition Type; specify primary, the partition size; specify the full drive capacity, the drive letter; specify the drive letter you wish to have the drive to be, and the format partition; specify NTFS or FAT32. </li>
</ol>
<p>Run the anti-virus software and let me know what it finds...</p>
<p>^so from what your saying the only option left is to re-format the harddrive? i thought that computer specialist could get your deleted files back but it would cost alot?</p>
<p>There are companies that specialize in data recovery. Having never used such a service, I have no idea what their charges are You can run a search on Google to see whats available.</p>
<p>What bothers me is that hard drives dont lose their format in a few months. Manufacturers include software that allows you to do a low level format of your hard drive, set partition size and file type (FAT32/NTFS). XP uses NTFS (New Technology File System). The fact that your computer recognizes the drive, but sees it as being not formatted means that either it was never properly formatted to begin with (and, in which case, no data could be copied to it) or that some kind of boot record virus was downloaded which compromised your drive. Im guessing its the latter. There seems to be a lot of software for sale that can root out these kinds of viruses, but Ive never run across this problem and cant recommend a particular package.</p>
<p>Before spending money, you should go to the Iomega support page and send a message to their tech support to see if they have run across this problem. They may be able to recommend software to help you out.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>alright so i am going to reformat. thanks for your advice though. ps i called iomega and they said they could fix it (get my data back) but it would cost $1800. rip off!!! i also tried the truesword antivirus but i fixed 3 viruses and then it said "this is the end of ur trial. please try to full version for $<strong>.</strong>".etc..</p>