Strange message telling me to reformat external drive

[Allen]

I have a Seagate 500 gig external drive formatted NTFS connected through
one of the front USB ports on my Dell 531, running Vista Home Premium
with SR1 and, as far as I know, all updates. Periodically, I start
getting messages telling me that I must reformat the external drive
before it can be used. Naturally, this makes me panicky, but when I
check I can read from and write to the drive without any problems. I
assume, but don't know for sure, that Vista is generating this message;
as far as I know, though, malware might be doing it. Has anyone had any
experience with this message? I would be grateful for any help.
Allen

[Eric]

On Jan 31, 7:51*pm, Allen > wrote:
> I have a Seagate 500 gig external drive formatted NTFS connected through
> one of the front USB ports on my Dell 531, running Vista Home Premium
> with SR1 and, as far as I know, all updates. Periodically, I start
> getting messages telling me that I must reformat the external drive
> before it can be used. Naturally, this makes me panicky, but when I
> check I can read from and write to the drive without any problems. I
> assume, but don't know for sure, that Vista is generating this message;
> as far as I know, though, malware might be doing it. Has anyone had any
> experience with this message? I would be grateful for any help.
> Allen

Why are you asking a Vista problem in an XP newsgroup?

If you have multiple USB devices, perhaps you should connect them to a
powered USB hub, because you may be taxing the USB interface.

Eric,
PC Buyer Beware!
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

[db ´¯`·.. >]

you might want
to run a check disk
on that drive.


--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>

"Allen" > wrote in message ...
> I have a Seagate 500 gig external drive formatted NTFS connected through one of the front USB ports on my Dell 531, running Vista
> Home Premium with SR1 and, as far as I know, all updates. Periodically, I start getting messages telling me that I must reformat
> the external drive before it can be used. Naturally, this makes me panicky, but when I check I can read from and write to the
> drive without any problems. I assume, but don't know for sure, that Vista is generating this message; as far as I know, though,
> malware might be doing it. Has anyone had any experience with this message? I would be grateful for any help.
> Allen