External harddrive missing from "MyComputer"

My friend, first of all, ask to a friend to connect your disk to the computer and make a copy of all important thing you have inside it ok?

As you perform this copy, you'll be able to check if there was something wrong with disk formatting, partitioning, etc. I really hope everything is ok for you.

Hot shutdowns with storage media in USB are not usually good things. You may have to redo the partition, formatting, etc...

There a couple things to try. But before doing anything I would determine whether the problem is your computer or the drive itself. So my first suggestion would be to take it over to a friend that has a computer and plug it into his computer and see if it picks it up.

Also I have had similar experiences where this guy called Murphy (if anything can go wrong will it go wrong) has struck and the problem simply was a defective USB cable that happen to fail at the same time as I had a Windows malfunction, so naturally you end up chasing the wrong problem.

Let us know how it's going and once you've isolated the simple stuff I will be glad to provide any other assistance I can.

Recently a friend had a similar problem, decided it was in the hard drive, tried several different procedures including removing the hard drive from the external USB case and plugging directly into the computer only discovered the USB connection had failed ON his computer.

Of course by the time he discovered the problem, he had damaged the drive by banging IT around (if all else fails slap it, not recommend), and voided the five year warranty on its external hard drive by opening the case, so start slow.

Check this out

Hello bwire:

The program in the link looks interesting, I will have to check that out. Thus far I've only had moderate success with recovery programs.

I've been absence for a few days, I was hoping the original poster would've updated us on his progress. It's always nice to find out what the actual problem was or is, now were left with an unsolved mystery.

unsolved mysteries...on star trek they were called cling-ons

When in computer management / disk management right click the drive and set to "active"...

When in device manager is a USB2 enhanced host controller listed?

your data is there

do not slap or slam the drive

DO NOT FORMAT OR TOUCH THE PARTITION

IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM

email me

and I will send you my ph number I will walk you thru the recovery

its just to much to do

and to many question need to be answered

all I like in return is that you post the answer

Johnny Flash

I have a similar problem. My external hard drive locks up windows explorer every time I plug it in. I have tried it on both my laptop and desktop, and changed the usb cable. The lights come on and the computer tries to access it but it times out or windows gives an error that it is no responding.

Any suggestions???

Madjack

Try it in safe mode with networking.

What make and model?