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Do not format your external hard drive immediately if you encounter the message “Formatting Required” or external HDD shows not formatted, while attempting to access it. Begin by attempting some fundamental troubleshooting measures. Utilize BLR Tools data recovery to retrieve data from an unformatted hard drive if the aforementioned methods fail to apply. When relocating a drive to another machine, it may occasionally seem as unformatted. I’ll look at some potential causes and possible solutions.

Read about External HDD Shows Not Formatted

It indicates that my external hard drive requires formatting and it is external HDD shows not formatted – Widespread applications of external hard drives include backing up photos, videos, documents, and files; they also facilitate the copying of large files between computers. Their user-friendly, lightweight construction, rapid data transmission rates, and ample storage capacity all contribute to this trend.

Nevertheless, external hard drives fail to perform as intended, and numerous users encounter the following:

Symptom: When the external hard drive is connected to the computer, it becomes unusable for file access. This is due to the occurrence of an error message in Windows that instructs the user to format the drive Z: prior to its utilization. Should it be formatted?” or “The disk in drive Z has not been formatted” (Windows error message).

One user articulated the following concerns:

“I have a Seagate 4TB external hard drive that informs me it requires formatting all of a sudden. There are no backups of the 2.5 TB of files, images, films, and other content that is stored on that drive. Specifically, it vanishes and reappears every 10 seconds or so with the following pop-up message when inserted in: “Drive G: must be formatted prior to use. Would you like to format it? Preventing the formatting process would result in the loss of all data.

Question: I recently updated my system hard drive and mounted my previous internal hard drive in an external enclosure. When I plug it in, it appears on my computer, but without a file system label, just a letter (G). Disk Management reports that it is unformatted. As an internal disk, it used NTFS. I’m afraid that if I format it, I’ll lose all of my data that is now stored on the disk. How do I format this external disk without erasing my files? Or am I overlooking a step in gaining access to the information on the drive?

Don’t Format Disk if Showing External HDD Shows Not Formatted

Formatting will either delete everything on the hard disk or make it far more difficult to recover your data.

Although I do have some thoughts regarding the next course of action.

The drive appears to be unformatted.

• The term “unformatted” indicates that crucial information could not be read.
• In some cases, this is due to file system incompatibility.
• Try another computer and possibly a different external enclosure to rule out hardware concerns.
• If the hardware appears to be in good working order, data recovery tool may be useful.
• Backing up would have solved the problem.

Unformatted? Formatted!

 

 

 

 

Without formatting?

Indicating that a drive is unformatted signifies that the system encountered an error while attempting to read the master boot record, partition table, or other ancillary data from the drive.

This indicates that the disk’s ancillary data has been overwritten or otherwise compromised in the majority of cases.

Infrequently, hardware failures—whether in the disk or the circuitry connecting it to your computer—may also cause this issue.

Hardware issues are the most straightforward to exclude.

The file system

Before we investigate hardware, there is one software issue worth mentioning: file systems. Specifically, while Windows recognizes hard disks formatted by other Windows computers, hard disks formatted on Mac or Linux machines seem unformatted when connected to a PC.

As disk formats, Windows typically use NTFS or variants of the FAT file system. By default, Mac and Linux workstations employ separate formats that are incompatible with Windows.

If you need interoperability, choosing exFAT or even NTFS is often the most cross-platform compatible option.

If you have data on a Mac or Linux formatted hard drive (or thumbdrive), you must either copy it to your PC in another means or copy it to a disk formatted with a PC-compatible filesystem on your Mac or Linux computer.

Attempt another Machine

If you have another computer, connect the external drive to it to test if it is properly detected.

If that is the case, then:

• You have access to your information. It is the time to back up the data files!
• You are aware that there is a problem with the first computer that must be resolved.

Examine the External Enclosure – Solve External HDD Not Formatted

Because you mentioned putting your old internal drive in an external enclosure, I suspect there’s a problem with the construction.

A functional USB interface connected incorrectly to a hard drive may look as an unformatted drive.

I’d double-check that the drive was correctly attached to the interface board in that external enclosure. Check that all of the assembly instructions were followed and that the drive is properly mounted.

If you have another hard disk that you know works properly, I’d be tempted to put it in the enclosure and test it. If it works, you know there’s a problem with the first hard disk (which we’ll investigate next). Check – If the replacement disk fails, you know there’s a problem with the enclosure, its circuitry, or the connection to your PC.

Data Retrieval

If everything appears to be connected and working properly, but your drive still displays as unformatted, the disk has been compromised, and it’s time to break out the data recovery software.

BLR Tools (the firm behind Data Recovery Program) also offers a free product called BLR Recovery Wizard. Among other things, they claim that “even if you’ve formatted a drive so that it looks blank, Webbyacad can still find your files on it.”

Naturally, no one can guarantee full healing, but it’s a start.

ToolsForge is another option to examine. It’s not free, however the demo version should let you know if the application can recover anything. If this is the case, the tool may be worthwhile. According to their website: “Webbyacad Tools will recover your data if the hard drive’s partition table, boot record, FAT/MFT or root directory are lost or damaged …”

This would all be for Naught if

I’d be negligent if I didn’t point out that none of this would matter — or at least not as much — if you’d backed up the contents on that drive.

Remember the golden rule: if it’s only in one location, it’s not backed up.

Hard drives fail frequently and without warning. This can result in total data loss.

Whether or whether you recover your data this time, vow to implement a backup strategy so that the next time there’s a problem (and believe me, there will be a second time), the remedy is simple: simply restore your most recent backup.

Related Issues – Question and Answers

Why is my external hard drive refusing to format?

External hard drives generally do not format since they are not totally attached to the system. The cable should be checked first to ensure it is not broken and is properly attached at both ends. Try the drive in another machine to check whether the issue is with your machine rather than the drive. It is also conceivable that the drive or its interface has been damaged.

Where can I locate my external hard drive?

When you connect your external hard drive, it should appear in Windows File Explorer automatically. If not, right-click on the Start menu, select Disk Management, and check for the drive in the list that appears. Also – check If it is not present, you are most likely experiencing a hardware problem. If it is existing, you may be able to manually assign it a drive letter or analyze its attributes to figure out why it isn’t showing up.

Is an SSD better than a hard disk drive?

An SSD, or Solid State Drive, is a better internal hard disk drive option than a typical spinning platter HDD, or Hard Disk Drive. SSDs are faster and quieter than HDDs, but they are more expensive. When speed isn’t as important as affordability, HDDs are still good choices for external hard disks.

Recover Data From an Unformatted Hard Drive and Format the Drive

BLR data recovery is the most recommended free data recovery program for external hard drive data recovery. It can recover practically any form of file from the external HDD shows not formatted of your external hard drive, including Office documents, photographs, movies, audio, and so on.

Furthermore, BLR BitLocker data key recovery can not only recover data from an unformatted hard drive, but it can also recover data when an external hard drive is not recognized or is not visible in Windows, and it can recover data when an external hard disk takes forever to load.

You may effortlessly recover inaccessible files from an unformatted RAW hard drive with BLR Tools Data Recovery.

• To begin data recovery, download and install it.
• Connect the external hard disk to your computer first.
• Begin by launching BLR Tools data recovery. Find the RAW external hard drive partition (shown as Unidentified and tagged with a USB icon) on its home page. Then, after selecting the target external hard disk, press the Scan button.
• Please then wait for the scanning procedure to finish. The duration of the scan is determined by the amount of data on the disk.
• If you find the requested file in the left directory during the scan, you can pause/stop the process. However, stopping the scan halfway is not suggested for comprehensive scan results.
• When the scan is finished, this hard drive data recovery service will display all of the files it discovered in a tree structure. Expand the RAW Files folder to determine if the files are what you’re looking for.
• Aside from that, you have a faster and more easy option to find the necessary files, which is to view data by file type. Simply navigate to the Type category list and select the relevant file type to access the corresponding data.
• Using the Filter option, you can also view the found data by file type. You may also filter away unnecessary files based on file category, file size, and file modification date.
• The most critical step before recovering files is to preview the discovered files to ensure that they are required. To preview a file, simply double-click it or choose a file and click the Preview button.
• Select all of the files you wish to save and click the Save button. Then select a location on another drive to save all of the data you’ve chosen.

Please keep in mind that the free edition of BLR BitLocker Tool for data recovery only allows you to save up to 1 GB of files. To overcome this data recovery limitation, you must select a full edition, such as premium professional.

• After recovering data from an unformatted external hard drive, you can safely format the drive.
• You can format the external hard drive right from the window that displays the “You need to format the disk before you can use it” statement.

If you encounter an error notice reading “Windows was unable to complete the format” throughout this process, you can use a third-party professional partition manager to complete the format work.

Recommended Second Solution for External HDD Shows Not Formatted

BLR Tools Partition Wizard is a dependable and easy-to-use partition management program that can format your RAW external hard drive for free.

• Get BLR Tools Partition Wizard and install it.
• On the main interface, choose the external hard drive partition. Then, on the left menu bar, select the Format Partition option.
• In the new window, enter the label for the partition, the file system, and the cluster size. Then, press the OK button.
• Finally, in the lower left corner, click the Apply button to complete the format procedure.

In conclusion:

This article mostly focuses on how to repair an external hard disk that displays “external hard drive requires formatting.” The good news is that BLR Tools data recovery can recover data from an unformatted hard drive.

If you have any questions when using the BLR Tools programs, please contact us.