External Hard Drive Please Help

[dparker313]

Hey- I recently bought a nice Cavalry 250 gig external hard drive. I want to copy certain files to it, in case of emergency. However, every time I try to do so I run into problems. I have tried Windows Backup and several downloaded programs. Each time however, it ends up skipping most of the files and doesn't work when I try to create the backup. The errors are typically something like "Windows was unable to save all the data for the file F:\$Mft. The data has been lost." I can't copy any of my music either. It says "the file specified cannot be found" or something like that. Any help would be much appreciated, I'm starting to worry I wasted $100 on a hard drive! Thanks again.

[Leonardo]

Doug, if it were my drive, I'd just format it and start over. Do you know how to use "Disk Management" in Windows? After format, then download and install Cobian Backup (freeware). It's simple, thorough way to backup data. It's rock solid. Post back if you don't know how to use "Disk Management" to reformat your external drive.

[dparker313]

Doug, if it were my drive, I'd just format it and start over. Do you know how to use "Disk Management" in Windows? After format, then download and install Cobian Backup (freeware). It's simple, thorough way to backup data. It's rock solid. Post back if you don't know how to use "Disk Management" to reformat your external drive.


Thank you very much for the response. I will do as you suggest. I found out how to get to Disk Management. Since I am pretty computer-illiterate, I am not sure what to do from here. Perhaps right click on the F disk, and click format? (I don't want to screw up!) Thanks again. I love short-media

[Armo]

you got it!, all you need to fo is choose the disk you want to erase, right click the volume picture for it and choose format. make sure you do a Quick format you you'll be there all night.

a good way to tell what the drive letter is you want to format, is to unplug the drive, and open My Computer, with taht window open plug in the drive and let windows 'find it' and it will pop up in the My Computer window. That way youkow exactly what drive letter it is :)

[dparker313]

thanks again for the help. i did that though, and for some reason a similar situation happens. in the log in cobian, almost everything comes up red, as there are a ton of errors. could there be something seriously wrong? i ran adaware and spybot and nothing is there. could it be the hard drive? :sad2: sorry to bother you

[Leonardo]

There might be something wrong with the drive from which you are copying. It could either be a hardware problem or a file problem. Hardware - something physically wrong with the drive; file - file system on the drive has errors in it. I believe it's probably the latter. OK, let's go through the next level of troubleshooting and/or repair. Go to My Computer, find the symbol/name for your primary drive and right click on it. Select the Tools tab. Select the Check Now button. There will be two boxes - select both of them. Click on the Start button. At that point, you will get a message telling you that Windows can only perform the operation if you restart your computer. Restart your computer and Windows will perform the file system diagnostics and repair what it can.

You need to perform this operation for each operation on your hard drive (the "Source" drive - the drive from which you were attempting to copy data.

[dparker313]

alrighty i had the disk check on the C drive, and no problems found. when i try to do this on the F drive (external), it takes an extremely long time and eventually says windows cannot complete the check. perhaps the problem lies here?

[Leonardo]

Is the "F drive" your new hard drive?

[dparker313]

yes it is.