I have a 250GB external hard drive attached to my computer. I bought this hard drive about two years ago. Today I went to turn on the external hard drive and the light came on and it made it's usual whirring sound, but that was it. I couldn't open the drive up and there is no icon in My Computer or in the device manager. I went to the manufacturer's site (IO Data) where they kindly state that the hard disk is possibly no good anymore and that repairs mean having all the data erased from the disk. I have a lot of files that I saved on the disk and would love to still have. Is there anyway to get the information out of the disk? Thanks for all your help!

KRastro, don't give up on it too quickly. It may indeed have turned up it's toes, or not. My initial reaction is that for what ever reason, your machine doesn't recognize that it's there. Is it listed as present but blank? If it shows as blank, there are several freebie recovery proggies around. Perhaps one of them can restore your files? Another option (may be less appealing due to cost) is to have the data professionally recovered. HTH. Ed in Texas.

Hi, Ed. Thanks for the quick reply. No, unfortunately, it is not listed at all. I did try to hook it up to another computer, but it wasn't recognized on that either. The sad fact is that I only used the external hard drive once a month at the most and sometimes not even that much. Where would I begin to look into having the data professionally recovered?

right click My Computer and click manage, and disk management to see if it listed there, you may have the option the initialize the drive or assign it a drive letter. also try a different usb hub. is the usb cable still good? in device manager one can also remove all the device entries and let the OS re-assign them, best done in safe mode.

Hi, Birdlegs. Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, the external hard drive is not listed in disk management. I have also tried different USB hubs, but with no success. I hooked up a digital camera just to check if the USB hub was okay and it worked fine. It just seems that suddenly the external drive won't be recognized.

I have a question for anyone reading. Do you think I might be able to get at the data on the external hard drive if I put the hard drive in another external case? I really had no idea the thing would just up and stop working.

You have to try. Maybe you'd be lucky or maybe you won't. There is absolutely no guarantee. i_XpUser