Problem with Lacie Firewire drive

[Dave Bacon]

I am new here, so please bear with me if this has been asked before.

I have an external Lacie Firewire drive, like this one but 160Gb.

I have had it for a couple of years and it's been fine. However, the other day I started it up and it did not appear in My Computer the correct way. Instead of showing "Lacie (F" it shows "Local Disk (F". When you try and open it, it says that it is not formatted, would you like to format it now?

Obviously I would not like to. A lot of stuff on there i don't mind losing, music can be re-ripped from CD etc., but there are a load of photos of my kids that I don't have elsewhere and would like to save those.

I looked on the support part of the Lacie website, and it says

The directory is probably damaged.

* Isolate the drive as the only device on the bus if possible.
* Go to the Extension Manager, duplicate a base set and restart.
* Try to repair using Disk Warrior by Alsoft (http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/) or Data Rescue by ProSoft (http://www.prosoftengineering.com).
* The drive may need to be re-formatted.

The software it mentions seems to be only mac based, and I have a PC. And what is the Extension Manager, is that a mac thing?

I downloaded a demo version of a program called R-Studio on which i can see all the files, and it gives me the option to recover them to another drive if I buy the licence, which i will do if i can't repair the drive as it is.

Is there any way to repair the directory as the above suggests is the fault, without re-formatting and losing all my files?

Thanks for you help.

 

[PC eye]

That's when things like Knoppix Live for cd have their place. Know any Linux users? http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Knoppix or another Live Linux distribution runs strictly run booting from the cd or dvd burned with the iso image downloaded. It's Freeeeee...! When Knoppix Live is booted the drives appear as desktop icons where you simply double click on the one where your files are stored to open one window and double click on the icon for another available drive for transfer.

If you have a cd or dvd burner available go to http://www.burnworld.com/burnoncddvd/ and download the free version of BurnOn and put up with the ad windows that open after burning or buy the full version for none. Lately the free version has done better then other burning softwares used here for preparation of bootable Linux disks.