Lost Backup

[phantom]

For the couple years, every month or so I have plugged my portable hard drive into my computer without incident. After backing up the computer, I have unplugged the portable hard drive and put it safely away. BUT, this last time I plugged the hard drive in i received the message "the drive must be formatted" to use it. Have I lost all that backed up data? Sigh...just another of life's challenges. Thanks for any suggestions.

[grega]

Below is from the "Tom's Hardware" website . . . . generally well regarded for fixes for all kinds of Window's faux-paux's.

While the info states "usb-stick" . . it should equally apply to usb hard disk drives also.



"Not to worry, this should be straightforward. Although feel free to ask again if the following method does not work.

Firstly, find out the drive letter that your USB stick is. Let's say for argument's sake that it is the F drive.

Go to the start menu, and search for "run". Open that and type CMD. Depending on your Windows version, you can simply type CMD into the search bar and open the Command Prompt.

When this is open, type the following, without the brackets: [Chkdsk F: /r] Also remember that I am using the letter F as a reference, yours may be another but you can find it in My Computer.

Back to the point, when you have pressed enter, it will start repairing damaged files and you will see some of your filenames (relief!) before it finally asks if you want to save lost chains into another location. These are essentially remnants of damaged files, I tend to click "Yes" just in case.

Your USB drive should now be working."