PC no longer recognising external hard drive

My external disk is no longer being recognised by the computer.

I tried unconnecting and reconnecting it to the USB port, to see if the installation process would begin anew, got a message once that Windows couldn't recognise the USB device, and now it just doesn't give any message, just doesn't show up, even if you take it out of the drive and stick it back in again. The USB works fine with every other device.

However, when I say it's just disappeared, I say just that - it's not listed in device manager (not even under USB mass storage), and the disk is no longer listed in Disk Management. If I try to do a system restore, I just get the message that the E drive is either no longer working or has been removed - other than that I get no system recognition of there ever having been an E drive. The letter E has not been previously assigned to any drive prior to this one, so I'm ruling out conflict there.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling; the software says it's installed but the computer still doesn't recognise any such drive. I've checked plugs, power points, etc - no go. The only other computer I have is a 64 bit which doesn't support this type of external hard drive so I can't check it that way.

The only other thing that happened during the time when it was recognised and the time it wasn't, Trend Micro blocked a system process in C:\Windows\System32\.cisvc.exe (Info given in the log was the process was denied; detected process or resource ID was 776; indicated that it violated the system self-protection policy). I haven't tinkered with any of the system policies - they're just the defaults you get when XP is installed. Would this have anything to do with it?

At this stage I'm scratching my head wondering what to do with the thing (other than act on the urge to chuck it at the nearest window) - I've had it only just over a month and it's a Maxtor OneTouch 4 500gb (if that's helpful). I've also been through every step in Seagate's online troubleshooting process and no go.

Also - is it possible for them to just die in the heat? We've had a week of straight 40-46 degrees celsius heat where I am, and even the air conditioning doesn't seem to make a dint on the heat and humidity.

Does anyone have any ideas what to do when it just seems to vanish from anywhere in the system, despite installation?

I've also run anti-malware to make sure it wasn't related with something like that- ASquared and Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2009, and Unhack Me reports no rootkit viruses, trojans, or any other suspicious activity. A trojan was removed by Trend Micro a week ago, long before this happened. It was literally like one moment it was there and then the next time I tried to access it that day there was no trace of it left.

Oh, and I'm on Service Pack 3, if that helps.

Ideas would be most warmly appreciated.

 

Have you tried it in another machine to see if there was any response?

 

Good suggestion... try it on a different PC, and maybe try a different USB cable too. If you have a access to a voltmeter/multimeter, hook it up to the power adapter for the drive and make sure it's kicking out the juice it should be. When the drive is powered on, does it light up? Does it make any clicks, or any grinding noises, or any other anomalous sounds?

 

The only other machine I can try it on is a 64 bit one run on Vista, and I read somewhere on the internet that this model isn't supported for 64 bit. I don't have another computer running on 32 bit XP that I can try it on, unfortunately. I can buy another cable tomorrow and test that out - that is the next obvious thing that I want to try when I can get to the shops.

I guess I could try it on the 64 bit anyway - but if it's supposed to not run on 64 bit machines, I don't know how that's going to work. Since it's also a different operating system, it's not going to tell me whether it's a system issue that's at fault.

I want to try as much as possible before having to return it because although Seagate will replace the disk under warranty, I'd have to pay for data recovery because that's not covered, and I've recently placed on the disk several hundred dollars worth of purchased stuff that I have only just begun to back up on DVD.

Everything lights up as per normal. The light is on, and when you press the one touch backup button it makes the sounds it usually makes when it's working. Everything appears OK, and the installed software for it is OK, but the computer doesn't think there's a drive there.

Once and only once last night after Windows loading, the little Maxtor Manager icon (in the right hand bottom of the monitor) turned green for a second (that's what it should be), and then went back to grey again, and has been grey ever since (indicating no drive). Immediately prior to that, I had been frozen during the Sims 2, and when I exited before restarting the computer the icon was red (indicating a drive there but not working). But now it's continually back to indicating no drive installed status.

 

For about 5 minutes continuously yesterday afternoon it made clicking sounds all of a sudden for no reason, and then stopped. Since then it looks and sounds perfectly normal. No grinding noises.

I've had it in 2 USB ports. I've only got one more left at the back that's not being used that I could try. The front ones don't seem to get any results, although they work for my flash drive and every other device that I stick in them.