hi folks. just wondered if anyone can help with this matter. I have a maxtor external harddrive plugged into my pc where i was storing all my music and some movies. the problem is that i think i have downloaded a bad movie file to it, as whenever i try to explore or use the drive it just freezes and shuts down any program/window that is trying to access it. the drive sounds as though it is continually being accessed whenever it is plugged into the pc. i have run virus scans etc but it is unable to do the scan on the external drive. i have also tried to access in safe mode but still not allowing me access. also i have tried to access it via a different pc but still no joy. if there is a bad file on the external hard drive that is continually trying to run, how do i stop it, allowing me to delete it? it has been there for about 6 months now so it is relly becoming annoying. i would hate to lose all the music i have there. any help appreciated
You can delete the file with hijackthis, if that doesn't work and you want your drive back you have to insert the xp disc and reformat the drive, deletes everything
I don't think your bad file is stalling the hard drive, as the hard drive doesn't have an operating system on it, so a virus wont kill access to the drive. The problem may be that the drive itself is corrupt physically. Did you drop it? To better help, what kind of drive is it? Is it a maxtor one touch...becuase if it is its going to be harder to fix it has they require specific software, meaning you cant just use it like a normal drive and fix it that way. Your best bet would be to use the drive on a different computer and see if that works. If not, youll probably have to reformat the drive using maxtor's instructions and hope that the bad sectors are overwritten during the format.
ok, thanks for the replies. will try the hijackthis first. if not, looks like i have lost all my files. it is indeed a maxtor one touch, so it looks like it will pssibly be a reformat of the drive. oh well. thanks for the help folks
got hijackthis and it does not seem to be picking up the external hard drive thats plugged in through the usb. so it looks like its going to be a format of the hard drive. at least i get my drive back i spose.
I don't think that a bad file would be causing this. My buddy has an external HD and he couldn't access it for quite awhile but then he finally got it working again without losing any of his files. This problem has been going on for awhile now? I can ask my friend what was wrong with his and then PM you and hopefully he has a solution to fixing it. I would hate to lose all that music, movies and such. To me it just sounds like the HD went faulty all of a sudden, but I will let you know with what my buddy says.