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Do You Want to Format / Raw Format on External Drive

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Hello All,

I'm new to this forum seeking help for the issue below. I've searched for similar threads but all are either very old or not specific to my problem . . .

I/O Magic External USB Hard Drive (2007)
Seagate 250mb IDE
Initial problems appeared as the unit began to operate slowly, taking a long time to boot up and for folder to appear in Windows Explorer. Eventually the unit stopped working completely and would freeze up the host computer. Once the external was powered down the host computer would “unfreeze” and resume normal operation.
I attempted to determine if the external chassis might be the problem and removed the HD, mounting it as a slave in an older Dell running Windows XP (this unit had the correct IDE cabling). After correcting a “Don’t Have Permission to View Folder” error, I was able to see the drive. However, when attempting to open the drive in Windows Explorer, the drive at did not seem to respond at first. Eventually I got a pop up that said the “Drive is not formatted, do you want to Format Now?” I didn’t want to do this, so I ran Diagnostic Tools to try to Fix Disc Errors, and got the final message that the disc is in “Raw Format”, and that’s where I stopped.
This drive was a backup to the primary HD in my HP, whose motherboard died just prior to the problems detailed above. It contains ordinary personal data, but also my entire digital collection of music which I’d like to recover. I would rate my level of tech expertise about 5 out of 10!! Any suggestions? Is do-it-yourself repair software a good idea, or am I looking at $$$ for a professional service . . . thanks!

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