external hard disk problem

[Watchman]

I only seem to get to participate in these forums when I have a problem that I need help with!!

I've got an external hard drive connected by firewire that I use to store all my installers, documents and mp3 files for my iPod (and dodgier things like movies etc!!)

I've only had it a month so I don't know if it's faulty yet..

a couple of times already I've had problems with it returning the error "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable", Windows 2000 sees the drive ok in my computer but doesn't give any details such as the make, size and space used that it did before.

last time, chkdsk i:/f repaired the problem.

This time, it doesn't seem to run it for the disk.

The data is still there as I had a look at the drive in a couple of applications such as winhex and a demo of Active@ File Recovery, so it just seems to have "lost" something, I'm not a computer techie so I'm not sure what exactly!!!!!

Any suggestions of software or a fix that could sort this mess?

Or worse possible senario would be to use the file recovery and dump everything onto another computer (with space!!) and reformat the drive and therefore start again. I'm sure this isn't needed though.

[ZrByte]

A couple more details may be of some help to us, could you tell us the make, model & capacity of your drive? is it a D.I.Y made with a case and a normal hdd or was it bought as an external drive (Pre-assembled)?

Also, your firewire, is it built into your mainboard? (If so, what mainboard do you have?) if not is it PCI? or PCMCIA? (you didnt say if it was a laptop or desktop PC)

[Watchman]

oops, sorry for missing the bits, but as i explained i'm a bit of dope when it comes to the techie bits of computers!!

I feel I bought midrange or reasonable and not the cheapest stuff i could.

it's a bought in hard drive ready assembled, an Iomega 250gb firewire/usb2 one

firewire card is an adaptec and it was fitted just before i got the drive.
PCI or whatever, dunno!!

it is a desktop pc and within the recommended spec

When it all worked properly, it was blinding!!

[Watchman]

further to my original question, i think i'm going to have to reformat the drive and start again

So my next plea, is what software would you recommend for data recovery, either before the format or for after.

searching google, there are a whole pile of them and frankly, i don't know where to start!!

bearing in mind, i'm only a home user, the price of the software has got to be reasonable, i'm not expecting a freebie!! but not willing to pay big £$Ãà †â€™ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£$. Much of the software i've found is upto £50ish

I look forward in hope!!

cheers guys

[paulyoung666]

is it dieing i wonder ????????? , is it still under warranty i wonder ?????????? , if it is then take it back

[Watchman]

it's only a month old so it is under warranty. (actually got a 5 year one)

I want to try and get my data off and the plan then is to send it back