# Solved: External Hard Drive Trouble



## SJackman (Oct 9, 2003)

Last night during the shut down process a message popped up telling me that a certain file was corrupt and that I should run CHKDSK. I should have made a note of the name of the file, but I didn't. It was a gibberish name that may have started with "m$".

Today, I find that my external hard drive (a Maxtor One Touch III) is inaccessible. When I try to access it through Windows Explorer, I get the following message: "F:\ is inaccessible. The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable."

I ran CHKDSK. At the beginning, it gave me the following message: "Warning! F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only mode." It claimed to fix some things at the end of step 2, but it didn't help.

Device Manager thinks that the device is running properly.

I rebooted the machine but that didn't help either.

Any ideas?


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

In order to fix errors on the drive, you need to run chkdsk /f.


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## SJackman (Oct 9, 2003)

Problem solved. Wish they all had such easy answers. Thanks so much!!!


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Good news. You can mark your own threads "solved" using the Thread Tools above.


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## RatedRKO (Jul 17, 2007)

Hello,

I'm new here, but I've been having the same problems with my drive. I know how to run a regular CHKDSK, but how do I run one specificially for my External Harddrive so I may fix this problem? Thank you.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

What is the drive letter? If it is X:, for example, go to Start > Run, and type:

chkdsk X: /f


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## RatedRKO (Jul 17, 2007)

It worked! Thank you very much!


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Glad it was so easy.

But just for your edification: The next time you have a problem, no matter how similar to one in a thread that is already running, you should start your own thread. You can make a reference to the existing thread, if you want. That prevents your posts from interfering with the other person's (which didn't happen in this case) and also will get you more attention since some people don't look at the older threads again.


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## iminzona (Aug 28, 2007)

Wow Thank You!!! I Seriously Owe You $350 Because I Was This Close To Having It Recovered At A Local Recovery Shop. Thank You !!!!!


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