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External HDD blank after using diskpart

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3 replies

by retsmd

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I was trying to make a USB bootable for the installation of windows 7. I followed the guide in this website:

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7vista-from-usb-drive-detailed-100-working-guide/

I did steps 1 to 4. My 4GB flash drive was plugged and so was my 400GB external hdd (Phillips). It was too late when I realized that I did step 4 on my external hdd.
STEP 4:

SELECT DISK 1

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds) - this actually didnt take place (I dont know why)

ASSIGN

EXIT

Now, I cant open my external hdd ? it always says your drive needs to be formatted.

What should I do? I am not that computer savvy (my OS is Windows XP SP2). I really hope someone can help me in this mess. That disk contained files and folders that I have had for the last 5 years. Thank you very much.

Rets

3 replies

by nicknielsen

The diskpart CLEAN command destroys all the data that describes your hard drive. The data remains on the drive, but without the pointers from the file system, you will not be able to recover your data yourself.

If the data is that important to you, I suggest you contact a professional data recovery service. Since there are no hardware problems, recovery should be fairly fast and relatively inexpensive.

by bobmaria57

Hi,

As you told it means that the partitions which you made are not active or formatted due to wrong syntax for formatting command. If you want then again change the size of the partition or directly format the partitions separately and use for USB bootable for the installation of windows 7.

Thanks

by nicknielsen

But the real question is here: [i]That disk contained files and folders that I have had for the last 5 years. Thank you very much.[/i]

If he wants to recover his lost data, the last thing he should do is write to the drive. He needs to take it to a reputable data recovery service.

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