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to format or not to format?
i have a hard drive from my old computer that i have put into my new computer, it has all my documents and programs and everything on it but i can't get to the files cause the drive hadent even been assigned a letter so i assigned it a letter but now it says it needs to be formatted to NTSF.....so, will doing a quick format on my hard drive erase all my files?
11 Answers
- It's the hairLv 51 decade agoFavorite Answer
Yes, it will. Go into "Computer Management" under "Administrative Tools" and then click "Disk Management" and see what you can't figure out.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
If Windows thinks the drive must be formatted, it means that it found the drive's partition(s), but they were not formatted. Yes, this means the drive is formatted in a way that Windows can't recognize. There are a number of reasons for this including improperly handling the drive, a virus, accidentally formatting it and many others.
So, what do you do? Well, I would try to use the Partition Support utilities to see if it can find the data on the drive. This program addresses the drive not by letter but by number. Since Windows says the drive needs to be formatted, it has recognized the drive. That means it's still readable and the data is probably still there. DO NOT write to the drive or reformat it until you try the (free) software at http://www.partitionsupport.com/
Source(s): http://www.partitionsupport.com/ - Scott PLv 71 decade ago
If you like to get the files back, format the hard drive will wipe out everything you have. Did you try to get your new PC to read the old hard drive in FAT system?
- Anonymous1 decade ago
If that drive has windows on it also. Then unhook your other hard drive and just hook the new one up by itself. When it boots up take off the files you need and put on a disk. But if you want to use both hard drives together you will need to format the new one and then partition to ntfs
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- 1 decade ago
Any level of format will erase the files. There may not be much you can do at this point.
- Anonymous5 years ago
USB flashdrives jumpdrives dont need to be formatted sounds like the unit is defective or you blew it up, very important to STOP the drive before you unplug it from the USB that is the cause of most failures user error
- 1 decade ago
Move the jumper on the drive to slave, and then reinstall that drive. Once you do that you will be able to see the the files you ahve on that system.
You will need to take ownership of the files you want to keep
Source(s): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421 - 1 decade ago
Don't use quick format option, instead of it use the format option it will erase ur files.
- 1 decade ago
well yeah it will delete all but you can use software to recover lost documents did you set the hardrive to slave? or cable select?
ask me for more info provide more on how you can about using a diff hdd drive
