corrupt external hdd-help!

Hey guys this is the situation:

Dell Inspiron 9400, Win XP Pro

.Bought an external HDD case + 320gb seagate 7200.10 pata hdd
-connected external hdd to pc using firewire 400
.formatted drive
.downloaded about 30gb from DC++ straight to external drive, worked fine.
Turned PC off, left external hdd switched on and still plugged in.
Came back next day turned PC on. -tryed to access the external HDD F: and...
message pops up

"F:\ is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

What should I do? Is my HDD dodgy and I should get a replacement?
Or will a simple format fix it? - I don't want it to happen again when I have heaps of data on it though!

I don't mind losing the 30gb stored on it at the moment.

Thanks

 

For hard drive problems one of the best utilities is SpinRite from Steve Gibson at grc.com I wish I had it back when my Deathstar based raid went down and took everything with it.
Not sure what is causing the problem but Spinrite will tell you if it is the drive.
Hope this helps.
Shawn

 

I would wonder whether the partition table has been corrupted.

What does Windows' Disk Management show? What file system did you use for partitioning?

I would try reformatting (using NTFS) and experimenting to see whether the problem is caused by shutting down the computer before unmounting the HDD (although this should not cause a problem).

John

 

There are some programs which help you with this. But, can I just recomend that you check that it doesn't work with USB first. Firewires were originally designed for Mac and they are sometimes not stable when using them with PC, even today.

If this doesn't work then do try one of the programs for doing this and as John Ratsey above me said the partition table could have been corrupted.

 

It's NTFS In disk management it just says 'healthy' I'll try those suggestions thanks.

 

Interesting,
In disk management it doesn't recognize that the drive is NTFS.
My other hdd says NTFS next to it.
It also says I've got 100% free space on it- but I downloaded 30 gigs to it. weird.

 

Did you try rebooting both devices (the external HDD and then the laptop or vice versa)?

Sometimes the chipsets on the external enclosures are flaky and need a kick start to get them to recognize in Windows again.

 

Another thought: When you have it connected, go into Device Manager, right click on that HDD (if it is there) and select Uninstall. Do the same for the USB enclosure.

Then disconnect and reconnect and Windows should redetect this hardware.

John

 

If you haven't yet, run chkdsk once, with the /f switch. It's a better program than most give it credit for. If that doesn't work, only then I'd recommend using third party data recovery software(of which there are lots, azeureus disk suite, and pcinspector file recovery being my picks.)

 

I would try putting it into another caddy and seeing if it works on top of the suggestions above

Of course it could be anything from that to a bad partition, though disk management does not say anything like that here...

I presume you don't have anything like Acronis disk director suite with advanced (automated!) repair tool or anything?

I am reading that you did not remove the drive and just switched your PC off?

 

Hey guys thanks for the suggestions.
I formatted the drive and it worked fine.
I safely removed it a switched it off then switched it back on and I could still access it fine.
Then I tried the same thing as before: I turned my pc off but left the external drive switched on. Next time I booted up PC, drive spins up again but same deal...
F:\ is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable
when I try to access it, also the safely remove icon isn't in the system tray.

So It seems like this is what causes the problem. I wonder if it's the same for all firewire external enclosures, or if it's to do with the hard drive?
I'll try formatting again and do the same test but with USB2

 

You could just click 'remove hardware' every time? Takes 10 seconds, saves on heartache and heartbreak