External Hardrive?

Question

External Hard drive?
I have an external hard drive with some very important files on it. Today I plugged it in and it wasnt reading on none of my two PCs and normally at all times it does. When I did get it to read it shows that nothings on it and its 100% Space Free when in reality there is files on it. Does anyone know how to fix this problem. I have a windows XP system the external hard drive has 160 GB. Right now I got it to show up as an icon but it still shows there is nothing on it. When I know files are on it.. Please Help. I unplug it from the inside to see if that was causing the problem could that of reformatted it???

Can U Explain How I do that pls.

Connect it as a slave

Answer 1

Mike, I've seen your question several times tonight, but I don't believe I've seen a sensible response.

Let me tell you now, DON'T format your hard drive. If you do that, you're more likely to lose your information forever. (Actually, that's not strictly true. There are data recovery services available, but they're exorbitantly expensive for the average user.)

Unplugging your hard drive from inside your computer case would not have reformatted it. You would have actually had to use the format command to do that, or tried booting up with an original Windows XP CD and letting it set up on the hard drive. If you'd have done that though, you'd definitely be able to see the contents of the drive.

Normally, as you'd expect, Windows XP would automatically detect a USB device, and you'd be able to read the information.

Have you actually used your USB port, in the past, to connect any other appliance? Was it detected successfully? If not, take a look at your motherboard CD, which should have come with the computer, to see if there are drivers on there for a USB host. Although I have USB ports built onto my motherboard, I have to install drivers from my motherboard CD before I can use it successfully. Mind you, my motherboard is a few years old now, and things may have moved on somewhat.

As an afterthought, one other thing that you might consider is purchasing a plug-in USB adaptor card. This simply slots into a free PCI slot inside your computer. You will have to install drivers for the card to be recognised, but there's a greater chance of you being able to read your hard drive.

Failing that, it looks like you may have a problem with your hard drive. Don't panic though. It may be something as simple as a missing, or corrupt, MBR (Master Boot Record). If this is the case, you may need to get someone who's conversant with data rescue to regain the information that you feel is important. (There are programs that will attempt to fix (or rewrite) your MBR, but they may not work with Windows XP.

I wish I could have been more help, but I do hope that you've gained something from my witterings.

Answer 2

I would remove the hard drive from the enclose it connect it to your system as a slave drive on 2nd IDE or SATA controller. And copy your files over. Make sure your BIOS setting for that drive is set to Auto detect.

USB external drives are not durable IMO, I don't use them. Switch to either Firewire/1394 or go with NAS.

Answer 3

yes!!you can get rid of your files that way if it is not in a computer or laptop with a extra or only battery.