Lost FAT ?

[PEI_3721]

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.

[jetcollie]

To eliminate the obvious have you tried a different usb port? If that doesn't help you could try 'chkdsk'. Click start/run/ type: chkdsk x: /f where x is the drive letter allocated to your external drive and don't miss the space after x:. Hit Enter and accept any options by typing 'y' and enter. You can report the findings here. Good luck.

[Saab Dastard]

Do you have another PC that you can try the external drive on?

If so, and you can copy the data onto that PC (and make a CD backup), then it puts you into a more comfortable position.

It is as likely (or even more so) to be your PC that's at fault, rather than the external disk.

Do other removable devices - CDs, other USB memory sticks etc. still work OK?

After one particularly annoying failure with an external USB device, I found that the entire removable file system on the PC had gone t1ts-up, leading to a re-installation of the OS (Win XP).

SD

[Sul]

You might want to try Partition Table Doctor (http://www.ptdd.com/) - I managed to totally screw up my hard drive once.. and this piece of software saved a great deal of trouble! It's payware, I think they do have a free demo download - not sure how much work that does though.

-Sul

[jay_hl]

You might want to try weight gaining pills.
Sorry couldnt resist
:ok: