Why does a hard disk suddenly look to Windows as if it "needs to be formatted"?

Posted by pufferfish on Super User See other posts from Super User or by pufferfish
Published on 2010-04-29T12:23:01Z Indexed on 2010/04/30 8:37 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 219

Filed under:

Windows

|

Hardware

|

hard-drive

|

theory

|

data-recovery

This is more of a theory question, but what are the reason(s) for a disk to suddenly cause Windows to start saying it "needs to be formatted"?

It happens to an IDE disk that I have in a cheap external enclosure, and I can usually get most of the data back by using software like recuva. It's now happened to an internal disk I have. I'm not looking for software to fix this (although links would be appreciated), but rather a low-level explanation as to what gets corrupted on the disk.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about Windows

Server 2012 DFS New Member Issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to add a new member to our DFS topology. We have 3 DCs (VMs - VMware) running Windows server 2012, two servers are located in or Primary site and the third at our DR site. Currently the two servers at our primary site are currently replicating DFS (full mesh) and are working fine. I have… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
Microsoft Management Console stops working when I add snap-in to it

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. I'm opening mmc.exe as administrator and trying add Certificates or any other snap-in, then while loading that snap-in MMC breaks and displays following message and after that it closes automatically once I click on close button on that message. What could be the problem… >>> More
Handling keyboard and mouse input (Win API)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
There is a number of ways to catch mouse or keyboard under Windows. So I tried some of them, but every of them has some advantages and drawbacks. I want to ask you: Which method do use? I've tried these: WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP - Main disadvantage is that, I can't distinguish between left and right-handed… >>> More

Related posts about Hardware

Older SAS1 hardware Vs. newer SAS2 hardware

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
I got a question today from someone asking about the older SAS1 hardware from over a year ago that we had on the older 7x10 series. They didn't leave an email so I couldn't respond directly, but I said this blog would be blunt, frank, and open so I have no problem addressing it publicly. A quick… >>> More
Installer Reboots at "Detecting hardware" (disks and other hardware) on all recent Server Installs

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have a very frustrating problem with my PC. I cannot install any recent version of Ubuntu Server (or even Desktop) since 9.04 even using the text-based installer. I boot from a USB stick created by Unetbootin (I also tried other methods such as startup disk creator with no difference). On the Server… >>> More
Difference between "machine hardware" and "hardware platform"

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
My Linux machine reports "uname -a" outputs as below:- [root@tom i386]# uname -a Linux tom 2.6.9-89.ELsmp #1 SMP Mon Apr 20 10:34:33 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux [root@tom i386]# As per man page of uname, the entries "i686 i686 i386" denotes:- machine hardware name (i686) processor type (i686) hardware… >>> More
Remove hardware from "safely remove hardware" list on Windows 7

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi, I have a USB wifi card (D-Link DWA-125) on a Windows 7 x64 computer. The problem is that the card appears on the "safely remove hardware" list, but I don't ever want to unplug it, so I would like to remove it from the list. So far I have only found solutions that mess with the registry (and… >>> More
Windows 7 Not Recognizing Any Hardware, Linux Recognizing Hardware

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a new desktop computer with two SSDs: one running Linux Mint 15 (SSD1), the other running Windows 7 (SSD2). My mint runs perfectly - USB wireless adapter is recognized, SSD2 (connected by SATA) is recognized and accessible through the filesystem, Ethernet works, etc. However, my Windows 7… >>> More