Please help me with my External Portable hard drive

Asked By hebrewprince 0 points N/A Posted on - 09/29/2011

I have been using my laptop for a couple of years and so I decided to buy my own external hard drive so that I can save my files there and save some space in my laptop. However, just recently I bought a new PC. I have important files in my external portable hard drive which I want to use in my PC.

When I plugged my external hard drive to my PC, it was asking me to reformat it. I was just scared that it might have been destroyed so I didn't reformat it and tried to use it in my laptop.

Luckily, when I plugged my portable hard drive to my laptop it was working well.

What should I do so that I can also use my portable hard drive to my PC?

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Answered By pauledward 0 points N/A #83685

Please help me with my External Portable hard drive

There may be a difference in file system your HDD is formatted with and your Pc’s file system support. If you really want to use your HDD with your Pc, sadly you have to reformat it on your Pc.

There is another way that you can use to go through this problem that is to use Norton Partition Magic to convert your HDD’s file system without even losing your important files. Try to use FAT file system since it is almost compatible with all Microsoft Operating Systems.  You can download Norton Partition Magic from

Download Link1

Install it into your laptop and convert file system of your HDD into FAT file system.  

Best of luck!

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Answered By Sharath Reddy 590495 points N/A #310447

Please help me with my External Portable hard drive

It seems your external hard drive is not working properly when connected to a normal desktop computer but the total opposite when connected to your laptop. If this is the case, try connecting the drive to another USB port on your desktop computer then see if it works. Try connecting the drive to all available USB ports on the computer.

If all available USB ports displayed the same message that you need to format the drive, go back to your laptop then connect the external hard drive there. Now, in your laptop, create a new folder then copy the entire contents of the external hard drive to that folder to back it up.

When the entire drive is fully backed up on your laptop, disconnect the external hard drive from the laptop then connect it again to your desktop computer. Now, when it prompts you to format the drive, click to cancel then download EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition and install it. Once installed, start EASEUS Partition Master then delete the partition on your external hard drive.

Once the partition is deleted, create a new partition then format it. Perform a full format, not a quick format. When it is finished, close EASEUS Partition Master then disconnect and reconnect the external hard drive on the computer. Check if you still receive the message to format the drive.

When everything is working normally again, restore the contents you backed up on your laptop back to the external hard drive.

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• Posted on - 05/17/2018
• Question Category: Misc Hardware