I have an external USB2 HD and I partition and format it using WinXP's commands (right clicking My Computer - and then Manage - then Disk Management - and using the partition and format after right clicking on the USB2 drive).
For some reason, it will work fine and hold all the data (music recordings) and then if I leave the drive hooked up and powered up and then re-boot - I lose the format (WinXP file system not FAT32). It only gets lost after the re-boot - nutty really. If I unhook it outside of the re-boot - it is fine when I hook it back up.
Once it loses the formating - (I get a message within Disk Management that the partition exists but is unknown as to its file system type) - it is the same on my laptop as well as my desktop. So it seems it is losing some kind of information for the system written on the USB2 drive itself - System Info Hidden File perhaps.
I don't know . But I have a couple external drives for storage and my pc's do not like it when the drives are turned on when it boots up . The boot will hang . I have to unplug them before I boot up . ????
To be more specific - what is happening is that I end up with an unknown partition rather than what I had originally - which was an NTFS formatted partition. For some reason, at some point, it seems to be on a re-boot - I lose the NTFS and it changes to Healthy Unknown Partition - and none of the data is accessable from that point on. There seems to be now way to recover from this except to delete the unknown partition - sealing that my data is lost forever - and then setting up a new partition and formatting it as NTFS. For some reason - I don't get an option to have it as FAT32 at all - which seems odd. I can't seem to see any way to use WinXP to get a FAT32 drive. I'm wondering if this was a change in version 2 WinXP.
Does anyone know of any WinXP program that might be able to fix the problem so I can recover the lost data?
Geez, I think I might have stumbled into what the issue is here. Yicks! I could be all wrong about this - but it looks like WinXP only wants to have one primary NTFS partition which has the operating system on it. So on the re-boot - what is happen to me perhaps is that WinXP automatically on boot-up changes my 2nd primary NTFS partition to 'hidden'. So I've got to use a utility I guess to 'un-hide' the parition. From what it looks like - it is re-hidden on the next boot-up. So this is a major pain in the ass. I guess that is why the external drives all seem to be FAT32. If this is the problem; that would explain why I lose my partition on boot-up, but not at any other time. It might be a later version of WinXP that does this too - I'm not sure if my older WinXP version on the laptop is doing this.
Still lost and confused - and this might not be the problem - but at least it is a possible direction to explore.
I ended up buying Partition Magic 8 which supports USB2 external drives - and this is apparently what I should have done right off the bat. So now I've got the USB2 drive set up as a primary partition FAT32.
Partition Magic had recommended setting it up as a logical drive, but all the other pre-formated externals I have are set up as primary and that is also what the external enclosure kit booklet instructed. So Paul, if you have it set up as a logical drive - that might be why you are having problems on the boot-up and have to turn it off or unhook it every time. It appeared, though I'm not sure, that it hung on me when I first tried the logical drive option. I just deleted it and went back to having it primary after seeing all the others were set up that way - screw the recommendation by Partition Magic.
Now to see if this thing continues to work well over time. God I sure hope so. I lost about 3 weeks worth of work. I hate it when that happens. At least I can re-construct what I lost. I once lost a ton of backup data when I used a tape backup drive and switched from Win 3.1 to Win95. They didn't mention that if you had backup data in Win 3.1 on the tape and added using the Win95 program that it wiped out everything. That was a shocker. No warning message - nothing. It took me about a year to get over that mess - the joys of home computers. Now I keep multiple backups of everything and keep a set off-site.
I guess I'm still faced with more incidents like this even now. Every new technology seems to have issues and problems. So the transition to external drives burns me. Live and learn.
I lost my firewire drive and everything on it. I had started backing up all the files I didn't want to loose in case of a drive failure. And poof. the drive won't spin up. Won't showup. nothing. All I was trying back up was lost. As I deleated much off my drive as I archived it to the external usb/firewire WD drive.
This just really got me. The drive is a door stop now and all the files I wanted to save are lost.
Losing data is a catastrophe. After the tape drive fiasco, I soon was able to go to CD-R; I didn't even trust RW. Then I read that some of the blanks could be defective. So I went to a system where I used different types of CD-R media and different brands and backed up everything in triplicate. I also would create big master folders of the most crucial can't afford to loose files and then I'd burn those separately. I never keep anything on a HD that I want kept safe. Everything crucial goes to DVD+R/RW now. With the risk of a scratch wrecking a disk - I keep multiple disks for that too - and then keep one set off-site. I also have a program called DVD X Rescue. I set up a folder for backup and keep everything in that one folder and back that up on RW till I have a DVD+R's worth of data and then I start burning the DVD+R's for a permanent backup. I also keep a log of the backup disks and have a system of labeling them. I could lose thousands of dollars otherwise. It's just too critical to fool around.
Some files though - media files - they are still too large to back up. That's what I just lost recently. I'm looking forward to the day we have terabyte DVD+R's.
I'm pretty happy with the Maxtor brand in external USB2/Firewire external HD's. They have a number of special features. A 250 gig drive pre-formated to FAT32 can be had for about $180 if you shop around. They are built like a tank. The older USB2 WD's got pretty hot, but the new ones stay pretty cool somehow. They aren't build though anything like the tank-like Maxtors that seem to be designed to withstand an atomic blast. Unless problems arise - I plan on sticking with those. They seem to get top ratings on Amazon. ACOM are cheap and look to suck.
Well here is the update - I finally was able to piece together things like Sherlock Holmes and just tonight was able to restore my external HD - AND BABY! - I GOT ALL MY 3 WEEKS WORTH OF DATA BACK!!!.
After the boot of the computer, that's when my external HD disappeared. So it had to be something that WinXP SP2 (I'm guessing this is an SP2 issue as I saw somebody mention this as speculation) did to my external HD's MBR.
Somebody had mentioned that I might be dealing with a hidden partition. All f'ing WinXP would tell me was that the partition was of an unknown types - which it ought to be able to do better than that.
So I bought Norton Partition Magic 8.05 - and you'd think that would have tools to fix problems, but if it does, I couldn't find them. What it did do for me though was to tell me that I had a Type 17 partition. So I did a search on that and found that, indeed, it was a hidden NTFS. I'd read that WinXP didn't like multiple primary NTFS partitions as WinXP wanted to have just one primary NTFS partition to find its OS info.
Now I thought that it should have to be marked as having the status of active for it to be a boot partition.
Another oddity in this - every boot didn't hide my external drive's primary NTFS partition. WinXP seems to be fickle and just do this out of the blue - unless I missed that it does it every time.
My guess is that FAT32 primary partitions are safe from this if it is a WinXP boot issue with NTFS multiple primary partitions.
So I found a data recovery company called Ontrack and they had a trial program that would show me if my data was recoverable - and it turned out that it was - but it was a %499 program - or they wanted me to spend money having their secure server and technician to the recover on-line. I didn't like that idea for the money and for the fact it might happen again at anytime in the future.
So what to do? I found somebody that said all that was at issue was a hex code in the MBR that could be manually changed and that there might be programs that would do it automatically. That became a clue. Maybe all I had to do was modify one field in the MBR and all the other partition data was still there - since it was a hidden partition.
So I somehow figured out to focus in on MBR editor programs. That's when I finally zeroed in on the solution to being in 'Data Hell'. One program couldn't deal with external drives - no good. It also required booting from a floppy disk and doing things in DOS. That seemed too old a method. Then I found what would bring me computer joy - Partition Table Doctor 3.
Partition Table Doctor 3 was only $50. I downloaded the demo and it showed me I was indeed dealing with a hidden NTFS partition and unlike Partition Magic 8 (unless it's in there and I couldn't find it) - it had a way to unhide the partition with a simple unhide option. Then all I had to do was use another option called FixBoot and then reboot the computer. As WinXP came up - I was delighted to see all my data back in a nice separate drive letter pointing to my external HD.
So - I'VE BEEN TO 'THE DOCTOR' - A...N...D (some James Brown trumpets please!) --- I FEEL GOOD ... boom pa boom pa bompa boom - THAT'S RIGHT, THAT'S RIGHT --- I FELLA G....OOOO...OOO...DDDDDDD ba bump ppppppaaaaahhhhhaaaaaaaa (blaring horns).
The data I'd lost was 3 weeks worth of wav files from AudioGrabber from hundreds of ripped CDs for my ripping project - ripping my whole CD collection and saving it backed up on external HD's in both mp3 and wav formats. I'm going to back up the mp3s after I got them fully organized on DVD dual layer ($20K of music on about 20 DVD+R DL disks - amazing). Anyone want a copy of my entire music collection?
The data lost was only the wav files covering I guess about 1/4 of my collection - on a 200 gig HD.
Now that I have a solution to the 'instability' with my external HD's - I feel like I can use them with more confidence.
So lawapa - if you don't delete the partition - and wait to fix things - you might be able to recover your data if you are running into the same problem I had - which is a good bet.
If this is a WinXP SP2 issue with external HD's that are formatted as primary NTFS (all my externals bought as externals and pre-formatted are all FAT32 - do you think they know about this problem??? - the HD manufacturers? - I was going to call them next) that's a pretty serious problem to just pretty much ignore and leave us users having to have a heart attack over.
If this is WinXP SP2 - I can see why people get to hating Microsoft. Not that Apple is any better anymore - it isn't. I'm sure Linux has its own issues - and I'd be even less able to deal with that OS (and it turns out that Linux users are running into this hidden partition problem and they were who helped me first realize what the problem might be - due to multiple partitions and dual booting OS's).
I guess an easy way to avoid this grief would be to always power off all external HD's before booting - that would also solve Paul's problem. You don't have to un-connect the data cable - just turn off the power - put all the external HD's on one separate power strip.
If anyone knows of other programs that do with and more for external drives - or of this feature build into other programs - let me (and all of us here) know. This program worked, but it was the only one I saw that could do this kind of thing. I stopped looking further into the matter once things were fixed. I'd be particularly interested if other partition management programs have this ability built in.
I have 2 extra hard drives ,both are formatted NTFC ative primary ,which I have no trouble with .These are internal not external and Im running XP sp1 not 2 .So maybe it is an Sp2 prob .I have had problems with Sp2 with some programs thats why I have not installed it.With Patition Magic you can hide and unhide patitions ,right click on the patition and go to advance and you will see it there.
Johny
I've been using Partition Magic for a loooong time (since OS/2).
Hide/Unhide is under the 'Partition/Advanced/...' menu.
Anyway, I don't use NTFS because I've had unrecoverable problems with it in the past. The design of NTFS makes file recovery difficult or impossible, so I use FAT32 and make backups.
I haven't had an NTFS corruption problem in a couple of years now, so the bugs may have been worked out. But I'm still paranoid. And I don't notice a performance difference with the things that I do.
There was no 'corruption' whatsoever. It seems likely that WinXP SP2 is changing the master boot record field for partition type and over-writing that field to make it a Type 17 partition. Now as to Partition Magic, yes, you can right click and all of that, but when this problem is created by WinXP, you are left with this Type 17 partition and when you go into Partition Magic, those right click options to unhide the parition are not open and available. I sure tried all that you describe. That was why Partition Table Doctor 3 (the 3 I think gives you support of external drives) was the only program that worked and saved me. I'm somewhat convinced it is an SP2 issue and whatever SP2 is doing on the boot-up; it screws you completely when you go to Partition Magic.
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