Hi all,
I've been searching for a way to repair my external usb hdd, which recently stopped working. I'm not having much luck, and I stumbled accross your forum so thought I'd give it a try. This is my first post. Here goes:
I bought a couple of 500Gb external usb hdd's from amazon about four months ago. They are both usb 2.0 connection and have been working fine up until a few days ago when the main one I use for backup stopped being recognized by windows. I am using Windows vista 32bit, on a HP1QQ70 'All-in-one' Pc.
Everything has worked fine since buying both hard disks, and I have been able to back-up all my data without any problems up until now. Now, when I plug the hdd in to my computer, I hear the windows chime telling me that a new device has been iconnected but it does not run autoplay as usual. When I open my computer to try and open it manually, it freezes my computer and I am forced to end task. On occasion, the drive will show up, but the details such as storage capacity and % in use do not show up. When I double click to open the drive it freezes explorer again. The hard disk makes a 'ticking' noise, as if it is searching for something. No matter how long I leave it doing this, it does not recognise the drive.
I figured the drive had just been corrupted and was ready to format and call the 450Gb of data I had stored lost, but as a last resort I plugged it into my PS3, where I found It was able to read it and I was able to access all the files stored on it with no problem whatsoever. Strange huh? I've tried using various other usb 2.0 cables but still get the same problem. So I know it's not anything to do with the hardware side of it.
So, I know the data is still on there, and not corrupt, but for whatever reason I can't get to it in windows. The only other computer I have access to is a laptop which is also running Windows vista 32bit - Same problem there.
I've googled around and tried to find a solution myself but had no joy. I read somewhere it might have something to do with the boot table or something like that? In all honesty I haven't had to deal with anything like this before so I don't know what to do. I've also tried running various data recovery tools such as 'GetDataBack NTFS', none of which will recognize the hdd.
I've reached the point where I've run out of ideas. Any suggestions please?

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