Can't open my external hard disk, it's saying to Format it.

This might occur due to data currpotion on your HDD. Isuggest try these steps:

If this is NTFS file system try a CHDSK command on the drive.

• The command at a prompt is "CHDSK [drive letter] /R" to repair
• CHDSK [drive letter] /F" fix file system.

If that doest work:

• Try plugging your drive to any other platform preferably Linux.

If none of this work then you have to format the disk and later can recover the data by using a third party data recovery software such as EASEUS Note: 100 % data recovery is not guranteed.

Regards

David

C:\Documents and Settings\mpos>chkdsk c:

The type of the file system is NTFS.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.

Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...

File verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...

Index verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...

Security descriptor verification completed.

CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the

master file table (MFT) bitmap.

CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.

Windows found problems with the file system.

Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.

156280288 KB total disk space.

12116176 KB in 34467 files.

11304 KB in 4337 indexes.

0 KB in bad sectors.

110084 KB in use by the system.

65536 KB occupied by the log file.

144042724 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.

39070072 total allocation units on disk.

36010681 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Documents and Settings\mpos>

THIS IS WHAT I GET WHEN I TYPE IT IN. WAIT A FEW MINUTES WHEN U TYPE CHKDSK E:OR TYPE IN

TYPE IN CHKDSK E: /F

or you can download a program from www.recovermyfiles.com. I have been using it for 3 years now. works on formatted hard drives tried and tested. this is last resort the program will find your files for free check if they are there and then you will need to pay one off fee for the full version. you will need another drive to copy all the files as this will not copy to same drive you are trying to recover.

C:\Documents and Settings\mpos>chkdsk c:

The type of the file system is NTFS.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.

Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...

File verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...

Index verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...

Security descriptor verification completed.

CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the

master file table (MFT) bitmap.

CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.

Windows found problems with the file system.

Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.

156280288 KB total disk space.

12116176 KB in 34467 files.

11304 KB in 4337 indexes.

0 KB in bad sectors.

110084 KB in use by the system.

65536 KB occupied by the log file.

144042724 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.

39070072 total allocation units on disk.

36010681 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Documents and Settings\mpos>

THIS IS WHAT I GET WHEN I TYPE IT IN. WAIT A FEW MINUTES WHEN U TYPE CHKDSK E:OR TYPE IN

TYPE IN CHKDSK E: /F

Here's the situation...I have a Seagate 3T external hard drive that stopped showing when I plugged it in to my computer.  After reading some forums and calling Seagate, I was told I should open up the casing and get a SATA connector so I could recover the data directly from the HD.  Seagate meanwhile sent me a new hard drive to replace the existing one. 

Today I went and bought a SATA connector and plugged the old HD to the USB, but it shows as "You need to format the disk in drive H: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?".  I do not want to lose all my data on this drive and don't know what to do.

I am not computer savvy and don't know what I should do now.  Bottom line is I need to recover the information from the old HD so I can transfer it to the new HD.  What do I do, short of bringing it in to a professional to extract?