Hi guys, I borrowed an external drive from my dad. I was using it, and it was working just fine. I tried to copy something between the partitons on the drive, but it was too slow, so I cancelled it. Comp was slow, so I decided to restart. When the comp booted, it detected a new usb device (it had already done so before). It was installing the software, and it said device was ready to be used. But, it didn't detect the drive now. I tried to put the USB wire again, but it still didn't work. Now, it's not even working in other computers. When I put it in, it starts vibrating, then stops, and the light keeps on blinking from red to green. Another thing, when the drive was working, Partition Magic was showing some message about 'Partition Table is Bad'. Now, it's not I think I realized what was wrong. USB port on the hard drive is burnt I think (it smells like that anyways). I used it for a long time (I have USB 1.1, so it took 3-4 hours), but if it burnt, it should have just gone out like that, not when I restarted? One more thing, when I was restarting the computer, a couple of messages came out, that x file (cant remember the name), could not be copied to M: (on of the partions). Data has been lost. Now, I am really desperate that this starts working, my dad would kill me otherwise. Please Help! PS Drive is local one I think, it just written 'For IBM Travelstar' on the drive. Anyone please! Edit : I really, really need help Thanks

start mowing yards, and get the dad a new one. that one went on vacation

I had an ACOM external HDD which also gave a burnt smell. Fortunately, when I put the HDD into another enclosure, it worked fine. I figured that it was the power supply that went bad. If that is true in your case, you might still be able to use the drive.

its not the hard drive, it's the data that was in it. I tried another comp, it's still not working. Come on guys, any other advise?

but it was too slow, so I cancelled it. How did you cancelled it? Did you cut off the power to the external HD or did you pull out the USB plug? Nevetheless cancelling or aborting external HD operation that is in progress is known to cause file system corruption. Once the file system is corrupted it will be recognized as RAW and RAW drive are difficult if not impossible to recover. If data is that important to you try data recovery specialists. i_Xp/VistaUser

By cancelling it I mean I clicked the cancel button on the copy window. That's it.