my hp pavillion 40 gb pc got terminal ad pop ups to which i couldn't fix. i reset the computer to original factory settings by pressing f10 which formats all personal info but keeps factory installed software. i had an external iomega 80gb hard drive attached with a backup of everything on the pc. before i crashed the computer you could plug or unplug the external hard drive and my pc would recognize it by name. now since i reset the computer it only assignes it a drive letter instead of the iomega name and when you try to enter the drive it says the drive is not formatted, would you like to format it? i even unplugged it and tryed it on another computer and the same thing. i can't access the drive anymore and my entire backup is on it. please help. p.s on device mangager it also doesn't give you the option to enable or disable device but says device is working properly.

lolohill, SWAG, sounds to me like the 'wipe' removed a needed reference. Any chance you can restore to a good date? What if you reinstall & rename? HTH. Ed in Texas.

Was the external drive attached to the computer when you pressed f10? If so, you may have wiped it too, including the file allocation table so that now it no longer is formatted.

yes, the external hard drive was attached for a second then i unplugged it. if what you say is the case, is there anyway i can retrieve the data still? please help

Try to connect this external HDD to another computer. Can this Iomega drive be opened to expose the actual HDD within?

i tryed it on another computer, same results

Then, can you open the drive enclosure and, if so, is there a 3.5 inch HDD with standard molex power connection and standard IDE connection? If so, this could be slaved on the IDE chain and interogated to see if the file allocation table was hosed. If it was, you're going to need help from Iomega or from a data recovery service.