External Mass Storage Problem

[howie54]

Hi, I have a Samsung R730 Laptop and it kept crashing and would not let me do system restore, so I did a complete restore but the trouble is that my external seagate mass storage drive was recognised as drive (F and now it comes up as (G and when I try and change the drive address it says I have insufficient authority even as Administrator??? it advises me to format the drive, but this has all my precious photo's, video's, documents etc etc I have tried everything and don't know what else to do.....really desperate for a solution before losing everything ! My operating system is windows 7 and I have a c drive, d drive, DVD/CD drive (E) and my external drive which should be (F but is (G???
Any help, very much appreciated. I am also pretty thick with computers?

 

[Ketchup]

Will a different computer recognize your Seagate?
The drive letter really doesn't matter, but of course the data on the disc does.
Did you have the external drive plugged in when you did the restore?

 

[C1]

A guess is that during the recovery process a system file was stored on the external drive (such as restore point or some recycle bin pointer). Change OS attributes to show hidden as well as system files and check the external HDD directories.

Scan read these blogs; you may want to try to modify the drive letter via the registry:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html

http://www.mydigitallife.info/chang...remove-conflict-usb-or-firewire-drive-letter/

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266874-45-drive-letter-assignments-registry

 

[howie54]

Thank you, yes the external drive was plugged in when I restored but my problem is that it has renamed it as G drive instead of F drive and I can't change it even though I am administrator ??? I know all the info is still on there, it's just getting to it??? any idea's

 

[velis]

The not having right to change drive lettes sounds sounds like a OS install corrupted issue.
However I still can't grasp how a different drive letter assignment should prevent you from accessing the data. Just go to G in explorer and see the data. Or am I missing a line here describing that now you only see the virtual CD drive which would install drivers to decrypt drive contents, but starting the setup just lets you know that the drive isn't compatible? If that's the case, I know of two ways this might have happened: 1. the USB --> SATA controller on the external drive got damaged & 2. You have replaced the USB --> SATA controller from another drive for whatever reason and now the new one has a different decryption key and obviously can't work...

 

[Ketchup]

Thank you, yes the external drive was plugged in when I restored but my problem is that it has renamed it as G drive instead of F drive and I can't change it even though I am administrator ??? I know all the info is still on there, it's just getting to it??? any idea's

Why does it need to be F?

 

[howie54]

Well it was always assigned F drive before the re-install and now it won't let me have access. I have managed to change the drive letter to F but when I click on it a message comes up saying access denied even though I am administrator, and if I unplug it and plug in again it says to format this drive ??? I know all my things are on it because if I try and change the permissions to allow child something or other all the files/folders flash on the screen. Even if I could gain access if only to copy them and then format before copying them back it would be something??? Remember I only have basic knowledge so everything needs to be explained really simple I am afraid. But I am sooo grateful for all your efforts to help me.

 

[C1]

There are many things which can/should be done to gain insight into the situation. Evaluate the external drive by connecting it in a known correct working machine. Can you reassign drive letters and does it chkdisk cleanly and pass something like the free SeaTools test?

Have you tried safe mode?

You may have to overhaul your registry to remove pointers to the F drive reference which your OS thinks are stored critical system files.

I suppose you could try a registry cleaner too, but if so make sure that it's a reputable one.

You may have to do an OS repair or possibly even a reinstall, but I would first try lots of other things first (eg, turning off system restore and deleting old restore points, delete the USB Hubs and HDD controllers in Device Manager and reboot for reinstall, etc.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Boot a Linux liveCD or USB install made with UNetBootin , and see if it can see your files. It sounds like it could be an NTFS permissions issue. Linux doesn't seem to care about NTFS permissions, so it is the ideal recovery environment for something like this.

 

[Ketchup]

If you can't do any of the above, (or they don't work for you) you could just quick format the drive, and run this:

http://www.pandorarecovery.com/
it is free software

I think I can comfortably say you will get 90% of your files back, if not 100%. The only catch to this is that some file renaming will be involved.

 

[XavierMace]

Well it was always assigned F drive before the re-install and now it won't let me have access. I have managed to change the drive letter to F but when I click on it a message comes up saying access denied even though I am administrator, and if I unplug it and plug in again it says to format this drive ???

Have you been using the "Eject" or "Safely Remove Hardware" options before unplugging the drive?