Hi, I have a problem with one of my hard disks.

I don't know why I got this problem, I wasn't doing anything special with my computer. Wasn't even using drive F when it happened.

Now my (F:) has no name anymore, just says "local disk", and when I try to open it I get this message: "The disk in drive F is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"



When I look in disk management it says that F is healthy but it no longer has any file system. It should be FAT32.

Whats really strange is that I have 2 partitions on this hard disk and the other partition is working just fine. So I don't think my hard disk is damaged physically.



I had some really important data on (F:) so I'd really like to get it back. Is there some way to fix this problem easily or do I have to get a data recovery program ?

hum; it shows as Healthy yet not formatted!
I would get Partition Magic software and see if it can activate or examine it.

I recently found this little program called Partition Table Doctor. You can try a demo on their website that will let you know what it can do for your drive. It's successfully rebuilt a partition that one of my clients deleted.

Yesterday I searched around on the internet to find a solution but I couldn't really find anything. So I decided to try a data recovery program. I used Easy Recovery Pro and it was able to recover about 98% of my data. Only problem was that half of my recovered data was now corrupted

Wasn't very happy so I thought I might as well format my drive and forget about the lost data. Then I thought I could wait 'til next day and see if someone had replied to this post here. I'm glad I did

I downloaded the demo version of table doctor and it told me that it could fix my F drive, but i had to buy the full version. 50$ is a small price to pay for recovering all my data so I paid and downloaded the full version. Installed and started the program up. Clicked the "Fixboot" button and my drive was now fixed. I've looked through all my files and they all work now :giddy:



This process only took a few seconds. Partition Table Doctor 3.0 is an amazing program. I can highly recommend this program to anyone having problems of the same nature. Maybe Partition Magic software is also a good program but I never tried it.

Thank you VERY much for the help jobeard and PanicX. If you guys hadn't helped me I would have lost 20GB or more of important data.

Congrats! There's nothing like the feeling of a successful data recovery.

Awesome.

NOW BACK IT UP!

Seriously, if you lost it once, there might be something going on with the drive or your OS. Better burn it off while you can.

MANNNN i got the same problem n im outa my mind


hey wut up everybody....
Rynkeby man look i have the same problem...2 days ago my hard drive D outa nowere just tells me its not formatted, same thing i have 2 partitions on this harddrive D n F the F 1 works just fine n the D 1 which is the 1 active tells me it needs formating n its also healthy(thats wat it says in the disk management)...i tried with the partition table doctor n did exactly as u said u did n i didnt work iunno why i even ran a surface test n it found 2100 ERRORS or somethin ova that but it didnt fix em that puzzled me styll...i have a question in the disk management it shows me the D partition empty space is the same as the partion that means its deleted everythin rite IN ur picture of disk management u dont show that empty space...WEN U HAD THE PROBLEM do u rememba if it said the empty space was as much as the partition example D: space is 83.79gb n next to it FREE SPACE 83.79gb

NOW my question to everybody who can help me PPLZZZ PLLZZZ i had some really important stuff n i cant do anythin bout it... DO U NO IF I CAN STYLL DO ANYTHIN BOUT THAT ? rite now im runnin a program called Recover my files but i dont think its gonna help

STYLLL plzzzz id be really grateful if somebody could help me

THANK YOU

Grettings from Norway!

Your tip about Partition Partition Table Doctor did the trick. I've spent days testing almost all the Recovering Software there is, without any luck, and I have read articles about this topic in _many_ forums.
Today I spent 11 hours, when I finally succeeded with this great software. Nearly 300 Gigs of very important files are now back again, without any loss.
Next step will be to implement a good backup routine, which I didn't have before now.

Happy New Year - and thanks again for this very helpful tip!!!

I'm a music fun and starting 4 years ago I started to transfer all my records on the PC (external HD). I also have video of my doughters from when the were born to last vacation. Before backing up I was defragmenting the disk and here comes the sad part...at 14% the PC got stuck, no mouse, no keyboard functions, I had to restart the PC and since then when I try to access the external USB HDD I get the message...The disk is not formatted. Do you...
The disk has only one partition and different type of data is saved in different folders.

What happend to the HD? What part got damaged? If anyone experienced my problem, could you please help me solving this big problem? Thanks!!!

VERY'VERY,VERY GOOD NEWS

if you have the message

'The disk in drive F is not formatted. Do you want to format it now? … '

you already have a solution

1- DON'T format the drive ...

2- WATCHES this Web (www.cgsecurity.org)

...and download “testdisk” for your operating system of “main page”..read everything very well before using it…

I had that same problem and this free software solves it in minutes …

HAVE LUCK AND SHARES THE INFORMATION

greetings dino.

Thanks, dinoyiyoeltopo.

I read this thread, downloaded "testdisk", and followed the step-by-step instructions on the cgsecurity wiki. It took me about 10 minutes, no sweat, and now I've got all of my dear photos and videos back. Yey!

after reading all these post and thinking all my data was gone. I got Partition Table Doctor. Clicked on the 'fixboot' and now i see all my data. I was so happy to see it that i join the group, because i had to tell others about it.

I have the same problem after my computer crashed. But it seems my case is worst cos both Testdisk and Partition Table Doctor cannot detect any partition on my drive Z, the currupted drive. Testdisk just says no partition were dectected and PTD just grey's out every option I have,( i.e i cannot select fixboot,save, rebuild etc,,,)

I really need your help cos I have over 300 gigs worth of things on the drive ( internal)

Im runnin on winxp.

Thanks

can i Get activated full version for partion doctor software as i am facing the same problem for my pen drive , and could not retrive data

pls suggest

I'm having the same problem.

The only difference is that PTDD isn't working for me.
When I click on FixBoot it says "The boot sector of the partition is right!"

However, it is clearly not.

Symptoms are the same as everyone's:
When I click on F it says "The disk in drive F is not formatted..."
In My Comp it says "Local Drive" instead of "External"
Disk Management says it's there and Healthy just not formatted

I'm using Win XP
External Hard Drive (F) is a WD Passport
It's one of the old ones...
Model #: WD1200U017-001
Tell me if you'd like to know anything else.