Question

have hp pavillion desktop. got terminal ad pop ups. restarted w/f10 which does system restore. it deletes personal information and keeps factory software. had external 80 gig iomega attached to pc for backup. now since i reset my computer and i plug in external hard drive it wont let me access it. it says, drive is not formatted, would you like to format it. this has my entire backup on it. please help. device manager sz its working properly but doesnt give option to enable it. thanks

Answer

In order to attempt to resolve this issue you will need to boot into the Windows XP recovery console. If you're unfamiliar with the recovery console see the below link for a dictionary definition about the recovery console.

http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/r/recocons.htm

In the recovery console run the below commands. Keep in mind in the below examples we used D: as the Iomega drive. If you're drive letter is different substitute the D: with the letter of your drive.

FIXMBR D:
FIXBOOT D:
BOOTCFG /rebuild

After running these three commands try rebooting the computer to determine if the issue is resolved.