Lost FAT ?
I am unable to read files on an external USB Hard Drive (Maxtor 300GB) after two years fault-free operation. The drive is physically working, it is seen as a drive letter by windows explorer, but it is not allocated its usual ‘Maxtor’ title. Windows explorer reports ‘not accessible – error performing inpage operation’.
The disc manager can see the drive and reports ‘Healthy (active)’ and online. The external drive does not show FAT or FAT32 under the file system like the other drives.
Is the absence of FAT the cause of the problem of not being able to read files, if so how can this be fixed?
Hints from search suggested reformatting, but this will loose all of the files, and I cannot access them (the problem) to copy to another drive.