Windows 7 asks Me to format the Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive I've used for more than a month

I used Seagate FreeAgent as my external hard drive for more than a month now, but recently I am unable to access Windows 7 asks me to format it to use it. Somehow I can format the HDD without losing my data?  Or does perform a work around?

Hi NuVille,

Before perform us any of the steps, first of all I suggest you to create a backup of the data stored in your external hard drive on another computer.

To save the data, you can connect your external hard drive on another computer and copy all the files and folders on the other computer. Later, you can connect the external drive to the Windows 7 computer and try to run the disk error checking and check if that helps you solve the problem.

Access the link below and follow the steps to check the drive for errors and fix it.
http://Windows.Microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/check-a-drive-for-errors

After completing the disc you error checking, try to check if you can access the drive.

If the steps above do not I suggest you try to format the hard drive. Access the link below and follow the steps to format the hard drive.
http://Windows.Microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/create-and-format-a-hard-disk-partition

Note: there is no way to format without losing any data on the disk. Formatting the drive will erase all data.  This is why you must back up the data before formatting the hard drive.

I hope this helps. Let us know the results.

Thank you and best regards,

Srinivas R Microsoft technical support.
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Tags: Windows

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