HArdrive question, its a quickey

i have an external harddrive that i made using a case and all, and i had files saved on it, and i turned it off last night
and i go to turn it back on now, and its telling me that i need to format the drive. why is this? thanks

 

Was it working before?
I mean, was it attached to your system, and you were able to access files?

I'd suspect Windows does not recognize the disk properly. Check in Disk Management for the status of your drives. Here's how:

1. Right-click 'My Computer'
2. Select 'Manage'
3. On the 'Computer Management' window, select 'Disk Management'

Take a screenshot of this window and post it if you need any help interpreting what it shows.

It's possible we only have to activate or import this disk. *crosses fingers*

 

yes it was working for like a week. here is a screen shot. im trying what you suggested now.

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/8729/ssformatbi1.jpg

 

seems to me that hte HD was deleted somehow. Ohwell, its just a smaller one i like to keep school papers on. thank god the semister was just over. haha but i think to me it looks as if it was deleted. now my 300gb HD works just fine as a External, maybe this one was just a fluke, hmm

also, can i delet that partition on my main drive which is c and d drives. i wanna make them one drive...

 

Not without reformatting the whole machine (or using third party partitioning tools - which would only work with empty space)... your C drive is your system drive, and contains your windows installation.

 

Looks like your filesystem was borked.

Follow my directions here and post the results.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showpost.php?p=691632&postcount=7