 Many of us use external hard drives to back up PC data from time to time. But if you receive the error message you need to format the disk in the drive before you can use it, then I'll tell you the solutions for it. However, you can check that the error can surface when you have unplugged an external hard drive, SD card or USB drive without the safety remove option. But sometimes you need different fixes to resolve the issue. Let's begin with them. 1. Change the drive letter Open the run dialog box by pressing Windows plus R key combination type diskmgmt.msc and press enter. Right click on the volume whose drive letter you need to change and click change drive letter and click change drive letter and path. Assign a drive letter and click on OK. 2. Scan your PC using antivirus tool For this, I highly recommend you to run T9 antivirus on your computer which is capable of malware protection, exploit protection, web protection as well as firewall protection. Coming with quick, deep and custom scan modes, all you have to do is choose the mode of scan and T9 will do a justice to your computer while also helping you remove this error. 3. Try using a different USB port, PC or OS. Very, very simple. You can try connecting your disk to another USB port and check if you can access it. Not just a different USB port but try out another PC or even a different OS such as Mac OS and check if the hard disk is working fine there. 4. Update your disk driver Using advanced driver updater, you can update the disk driver very easily. Download the tool, click the start scan now button here and it will run through the system. When the list appears, choose the disk drive and click the update driver next to it. And you're done. Last, try using CHKDSK that is CheckDisk. The CheckDisk command helps display the status report for a given volume and can help resolve any issues. So for this, in the Windows search bar type CMD, select Run as administrator. When the command prompt window appears type CHKDSK and drive letter F or the other problematic drive letter. Hit enter and wait for the process to complete. So that's it for today guys. Stay updated with us by subscribing to our channel and don't forget to share this video with your friends.