I have been using an external hard drive for backup (USB connected). Last time I connected it Windows saw it as a removable disk drive and asked me to insert a disk. Because of that I can't access the drive at all. Device manager sees it correctly as a hard drive, and tells me it is not necessary to use the taskbar 'Safely remove...' icon to disconnect it, but I have never trusted that and normally use that before disconnecting. However, I am forgetful sometimes and I may have inadvertently disconnected without using safe remove. If that is what I did, what exactly is it that happens when you remove a USB device incorrectly and can it be fixed, or is the drive a goner? Second question: is there some other possible explanation? CyberCrone

what exactly is it that happens when you remove a USB device incorrectly.. Put this is another way, what do you think will happen if you have disconnect the IDE HD ribbon cable while the PC is running? Will the data on the HD remain intact? Although the Safely Remove Hardware icon is not a perfect design, it is designed to notify Windows XP to clear itself from the drive. If Windows XP is unable to free it you will be notified with popup. Failure to exercise this cautionary process can & do corrupt the whole file system on the external HD. i_XpUser

I never use the Safely Remove HW function and have not had a problem in 2+ years that I have been connecting and disconnecting HDDs via USB. Try going to Control Panel and Add New HW and tell Windows that it is a HDD. Another option is to take it out of the external case and connect it internally, assuming the drive is 3.5" and you have a desktop configuration.

Grok Your habits are risky. If the drive is being written to or the cache on the drive hasn't flushed, you may corrupt the drive, as XP has pointed out. Cyber This doesn't mean the drive is dead, simply that there is some file corruption. If there are files on this drive that you don't want to lose and you can't access them from within Windows you could use Knoppix Linux, which boots and runs off a 700MB CD. Linux doesn't rely on the same file system as Windows so the files are usually accessable even if the File allocation table is corrupted. Knoppix is freeware but be aware the downloead is very big, so a broadband connection if needed. There are sites that sell Knoppix already on a CD for a nominal fee. Google "Knoppix".