Help! External disk problem

Chicken #16 · 6 Dec 2009 at 02:46

Hi,

I have a Buffalo 1TB drivestation plugged into a vista business laptop and today I could not access the drive in Windows. It says

"H is unaccessible - the file or directory is corrupted"
and when I right click on the drive it appears as 0 bytes

I have installed something called Testdisk that allows me to view all the files on the disk so I think everything could be rescued.

Has anyone an idea how i get windows to recognise the hardrive again? Same problem on 2 xp machines and using different usb cables. The drive was unpartitioned.

Thanks

Chicken #16 · 6 Dec 2009 at 16:00

Can access drive but not through windows

Ok....

I can copy any file off the drive using Testdisk and the files are fine....I just don't know why windows thinks the drive is corrupt.

I could buy a second 1tb drive, copy everything onto it and then reformat the buffalo drive....but would be a shame ifthere is something simple I could do to fix the problem

namnoc · 7 Dec 2009 at 10:02

That sounds like the best approach, but can you borrow a spare drive form a friend since you only need it for a day or two? I assume you don't have a full TB on the disk?

Chicken #16 · 7 Dec 2009 at 11:17

Well I've copied the most important stuff off (10GB worth) and the rest would be a shame to lose but not exactly worth worrying too much about.

The drive was pretty full about 750 gb so I was nearing the need for a new drive anyway....just a shame that if I use this old one again after formatting I'm always going to question whether it is something slightly more serious than a little corruption.

The only thing that I can think that could have caused the problem is that the drive is cooled passively (i think that's right - no fans anyway) and I'd left it on the carpet so possibly/probably overheated.

It just seems silly that I can access any file I need with this Testdisk and yet Windows is being, well...difficult.