The disk in the drive is not formatted

[Danielsd]

Please look at the picture I have attached.
DO you have any idea why this message is appearing?
The disk indicated with letter G is 250Gb, it is formatted.
I was thinking that the jumpers and the cables were not set properly but I've been told that the disk was working for several days with out problems, and then suddenly that message appears.

[nihil]

I take it that this is a physical drive?

I would try renaming the drives so that you have an F:\ also make sure that the HDDs are on the same ribbon cable, where possible.

Don't ask me why, but I have seen it fix that sort of problem.

Also check the BIOS and Windows................what do they "see" as HDDs/partitions?

What happens if you boot into safe mode?



EDIT: Very much of a guess there, but it looks like Windows (XP?) has become confused over what is a HDD and what is a removable media drive. I would even consider "removing" them in hardware manager and letting Windows "rediscover them"

I had a problem a few years ago with a box that had an LS120 and a ZIP100 drive. It did NOT recognise them as A:\ and B:\

Whilst I have no science to back me, Windows seems more reliable if you stick to a strict alphabetical order. Removable drives inbetween fixed drives does seem to cause confusion from time to time?

[Relyt]

Wow, look at all those dang ICONS!! Holy Smokes!

Sorry, got carried away with the attachment....

Originally posted here by Danielsd
...I've been told that the disk was working for several days with out problems, and then suddenly that message appears.

Unfortunately, word of mouth can be one of hardest troubleshooting issues.

There is a chance that the message is true as it reads. That the disk is not formatted. Someone may have made everything dissappear either accidently or intentionally (partitions, resizing disks, etc).

Another time I have seen that is when the OS didn't recognize the OS on the other disk. Windows - *nix, etc.

cheers

[nihil]

Hi, Relyt did you notice the P2P and music player as well..............maybe the RIAA owe us some more bounty money

Seriously, though, I would be interested in what the BIOS and safe mode show. I have got a sort of gut feel that Windows thinks that is a removable media drive.

I agree that it is very difficult to sort these sort of things at a distance, but it would be worthwhile trying the renaming trick?

[Relyt]

Sure enuf...He might have a small thumb drive plugged into the usb ports on the back, I did that myself...lol

cheers

[Danielsd]

LOL, you can both kill me with your sense of humour

[rcgreen]

Is this a new drive? If it was recently installed, I would look for a loose
cable or something. If there is not much data to lose, go ahead and
format it again and hope for the best. Otherwise, maybe it is bad.

[Raion]

Well, backtrack a little, what was the last thing you did to your computer (software or hardware) before it stopped working?

I've mostly gotten this message with Floppy discs (yes, a long long time a go), but I got this with a HD and it was because it ceased to work, and it needed re-formatting. When I tried to install XP on that HD, it told me that the hard drive was messed up or something and it needed to be formatted in order to install XP. But maybe you can try defragmenting (i'm not sure if it'll fix your problem though), I doubt it'll let you but you can try..

[Danielsd]

I don't know what the user was doing last with the hard disk.(it is not mine)
He told me that it was working. In the evening he stop it and when in the morning he switch on his computer and try to access the disk this message appear.
I've got exactly the same message one month ago, but It was a mistake with the jumper position and the cable.
It is a new hard disk - on it there are 160GB of data and it is important not to lose them.
I don't know how the things with the disk are going. As soon as I have information you will all know it.

[nihil]

OK,

I would attach the drive to another computer as a slave and see if it really is "unformatted"?

You can also run some of the manufacturer's diagnostics from there?

I would still try resetting the drive names but that may well be my personal paranoia?

Good luck my friend