Problem with external hard drive....

So I have a Seagate 1TB external hard drive, I had it set up so I could unplug it at any moment(without safely removing hardware) and not have any issues. One time when I did it at a friends house though it corrupted all the files(it was full). I considered this pretty annoying so I didn't even bother with it until today. Now it's like a brick....... it won't let me reformat it, I can't run check disk or testdisk because it's somehow become a RAW file system instead of an NTSF. No format's will complete and I can't even delete the entire volume because it won't recognize it as plugged in even though it's plugged in and will show up on my computer. If I try to access the HDD it tells me it can't because of an I/O error.........

I've looked around the internet quite a bit and can't seem to find a solution, I don't consider myself a computer genius or anything but I'm not retarded and even if I don't understand the problem I can normally find a solution so this is awful. Help anybody?

 

Have you tried Running command prompt as admin and formatting it that way ?

Also google hard drive wipers, as long as it shows up on your computer you should be able to work around it.

 

Can't do it in command prompt because it is in the RAW file format and windows basically refuses to work with or recognize it.

 

Tried all the ports I have and different usb cables... and plugging it in to different computers...

I sadly don't know enough to fix the MBR, unless it's as simple as finding something that will edit and fix it for me =(

The Seatools are probably the most frustrating thing around as far as I can tell. The first five times I tried to installer it, the installer never finished, now that it is installed when I go to use it it either A) doesn't load or B) doesn't recognize my TB even though my computer does.... and this is after reinstalling it several times.

 

Umm... I probably could? I'm not entirely sure how I would connect it via sata as I don't really know what that means... on top of that the computer I'm using is my parents desktop and they would flip if they ever saw me taking it apart so at a minimum I'd like to explore all the possibilities through software before I do something physical about it.

 

Update.... finally got Seatools for windows working properly... only problem is, it's useless. Short generic test tells me I have a failure, long generic test(which supposedly repairs bad sectors) alerts me to the fact that I have a bad LBA(apparently?) but that it can't fix it?(wtf?)........ so then I try to use the Seatools full erase program.... and it also can't function.

WTF is wrong with this hdd? I don't want any of the data, I don't want anything other than it to work and it's literally fighting me every step of the way. I only unplugged it one time and it's supposedly optimized so it can be unplugged at any moment....... now it seems like the fucking thing is fried. Especially because it keeps mystically switching between RAW and NTFS....... as in sometimes the drive can be read and its NTSF until I try to delete anything or format it or do anything, and then it instantly reverts back to the state it reads as most of the time which is "Local Drive(RAW file format)"

I'm seriously so frustrated right now, I've never ever had this problem with any piece of technology. LITERALLY EVER. I swear to God I don't even know how this problem exists, it's like someone took a magnet to my fucking hard drive..........

 

Update: About to give myself some bad mojo just by saying this ahead of time...... sooooo..... I uninstalled the driver software, and plugged in the drive again, it rebooted to the same things but this time was once again readable on my computer and not just displaying local disk(even though it's still in RAW and it's not actually readable), so I decided for shits and giggles to run Seatools on it and see what happens now that it's pretending it can read the disc.... well it's pretending pretty hard, I'm about 15% through the long generic scan(the one supposed to fix things) and it hasn't stopped yet(the other times I tried got to about 5% before stopping) so color me hopeful yet pessimistic.

 

It appears my frustration continues........ after about 3 hours of that test it finally finished, said my HDD was good to go. The long generic scan is supposed to fix anything that's wrong so when it completed I was excited, I then proceeded to try out the short generic scan and it also finished without issue. The device is still in RAW, it still won't reformat, and it's still not accessible........... wtf did I do to the technology Gods?

 

OH TECHNOLOGY GODS THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! After attempting several formats and none of them completing I unplugged my TB and plugged it back in and figured I'd give it one more go for the hell of it and it reformatted in about 5 seconds........ fuck yes......

 

Will do