unusual problem with external hard drive

I have an Iomega external hard drive and have never had a problem with it. I
only plug it into the computer and turn it on when I want to do backups
because I read that greatly extends the life of the drive.

Today I plugged it in, turned it on and a window popped up that there were
problems with it and I should scan and fix so that there wouldn't be future
problems. What was checked was to fix file errors, so I clicked to start this
scan. Then got a window telling me that Windows couldn't perform this
operation.

I went to my C drive and clicked on the external and got a message that
Access was denied, but in thinking about it now I'm certain it had the wrong
drive listed. This external is Drive K and always has been and I think the
window denying access said F. I decided to restart and see if that would fix
it. When I restarted, after the the screen giving the BIOS and such, there
was some kind of one-line message that appeared across the top of my black
screen. It flashed so fast I couldn't actually read it.

I waited and just about the time I was going to force a shutdown, my screen
came up and said not to shut the computer off, it was installing 1 of 3 (like
you get when you have installed Windows updates). The percentage never
changed from 0% and shortly my login window came up. I logged in and after
the boot completed I went back to my C drive and clicked on the external hard
drive and it opened right up.

This still concerns me because I have everything backed up to this external.
Does anyone know what might have caused this? Is there anything I need to be
checking out?

Nikilet wrote:
> I have an Iomega external hard drive and have never had a problem with it. I
> only plug it into the computer and turn it on when I want to do backups
> because I read that greatly extends the life of the drive.
>
> Today I plugged it in, turned it on and a window popped up that there were
> problems with it and I should scan and fix so that there wouldn't be future
> problems. What was checked was to fix file errors, so I clicked to start this
> scan. Then got a window telling me that Windows couldn't perform this
> operation.

The drive would need to be unmounted prior to running chkdsk /f

>
> I went to my C drive and clicked on the external and got a message that
> Access was denied, but in thinking about it now I'm certain it had the wrong
> drive listed. This external is Drive K and always has been and I think the
> window denying access said F. I decided to restart and see if that would fix
> it. When I restarted, after the the screen giving the BIOS and such, there
> was some kind of one-line message that appeared across the top of my black
> screen. It flashed so fast I couldn't actually read it.
>
> I waited and just about the time I was going to force a shutdown, my screen
> came up and said not to shut the computer off, it was installing 1 of 3 (like
> you get when you have installed Windows updates). The percentage never
> changed from 0% and shortly my login window came up. I logged in and after
> the boot completed I went back to my C drive and clicked on the external hard
> drive and it opened right up.


Not a good idea to be updating your system and running chkdsk at the
same time
>
> This still concerns me because I have everything backed up to this external.
> Does anyone know what might have caused this? Is there anything I need to be
> checking out?

If you are worried about the file system's integrity try running chkdsk
/f on the external drive...
best to do it before accessing it..or else you will need to dismount it
first...

Also...I'd advise backing up your data do still another drive...
as sooner or later, the drive will be bound to fail...