I have a Maxtor HD with 3 partitions in an external HD USB 2.0 enclosure. I hadn't had any problems with it until a few months ago when it started giving me the message that it couldn't disconnect, and I would get this message almost every time I used the drive. Probably as a result of having to shut it down without safely disconnecting, I had a few issues with data getting corrupted and having to repair files and indexes with chkdsk. Last night, I connected the drive to move the files off of it onto a different drive so I could stop using it altogether. One of the partitions was not accessible. It showed up in the drive list, but when I clicked on it, XP reported that it needed to be formatted. I had gotten this error before and was able to fix it with chkdsk, so I just decided to copy over the other 2 partitions, and worry about this one later. I only had time to copy over the other 2 partitions. I attempted to safely shut the drive down last night, but got the message that it couldn't disconnect. I logged off and back on and tried again, but I got the same message. So, I got impatient and shut my computer down, then turned off the external drive. When I tried to connect to the drive today, XP would give me the usual sound when I connected it, but the drive letters never showed up in my drive list, and the drive doesn't show up in Disk Management. I tried to run chkdsk on the drive, but of course that didn't work because none of the logical drives are accessible. I restarted the computer, disconnected and reconnected the drive, etc. with the same results. Each time I attempted to safely remove the drive throughout all this, I have been able to disconnect safely. When I look at Device Manager, Mass Storage Device shows up under USB controllers, and the drive shows up under Disk Drives. When I right click on the drive, select the Volumes tab and click the Populate button, I get the following: Type: Unknown Status: Unreadable Partition Style: Not Applicable Capacity: 0 MB The Volumes list is blank. I'm thinking the master boot record may be corrupted on the drive, but I don't want to attempt an mbr fix unless someone who knows more than me agrees. Does this make sense? If not, what else could the problem be?
Download and install DriveRestore Professional. Select the removable drive and run a Boot Sector scan... if it detects any errors then these will be displayed and they can then be automatically repaired with the product. If the partition is not visible after a Boot Sector scan then you can run a Lost Drive Scan, and it will detect the lost partition. It is a free diagnostic trial... you will need to purchase it however should you what it to make any repairs. DriveRestore Professional can be downloaded at: DriveRestore Professional - Advanced Drive Health Diagnostics, Corrupted Drive Repair, Deleted Drive Recovery.
