I have a 160 gigabyte external harddrive from Seagate and whenever I plug it into my laptop, it tells me it needs to be formatted. I've made the mistake of formatting it before and all of the information is deleted. It is shared between my parents and I and so none of us want to delete our stored info from it. How can I fix this?|||Seagate is usually a great brand, but nothing's perfect. Sounds like the drive is connected via a USB connection. I'm also guessing that it's inside an external hard drive case. I mean, usually if you have an external HD, and you KNOW it's Seagate, then the HD is inside an interchangeable case such as a DYNEX or some other brand. Possibly the case is busted, and you can move the Seagate to a new external case. Or possibly the computer has problems with USB. Try these: 1. if you can, remove the HD from the case and insert it into another external case and try it then with your laptop. 2. try the Seagate as is, with another computer besides the laptop. Make sure the computer is Windows 98 SE or later. 3. Try booting to Knoppix with either your own laptop, or another computer that has at least two available USB 2.0 slots. After Knoppix has booted completely, connect the Seagate. Did it work? If so, then connect a large USB flash drive. Did it work? If so, then copy the data from the Seagate to the flash drive. This may take a long time, be patient and don't start clicking everything fast or you'll crash it. Knoppix is a version of linux that boots directly from a CD without writing anything to the HD of the computer you're using. It's very good at recognizing USB, HD's, floppies, network connections, etc.. 4. If you care a lot about the data and are willing to pay someone to get the data off of it, you can use Ontrack (link is below). 5. I've had success on occasion with components I've placed in a freezer for 30 minutes (exactly, don't leave it in there longer, or you could hurt it). Usually the component will only work temporarily after this, but it will work long enough to get the data off.|||re format all and re load matter if it is not possible send me a mail

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