suddenly missing USB external hard drive

Hi guys
I have a Maxtor One Touch II external USB hard drive with XP Pro SP 2. It has gone missing in My Computer. It has happened in the past, and I just unplug USB or cycle power on/off and it finds it (same with my external CD drive D This time that doesn't work.
I noticed it missing because my Retrospect backup software cannot detect it to do the daily backup.
I looked in Device Mgr and it is there - device is working properly and it is Enabled.
I've even uninstalled and reinstalled, with same result.
I recently updated Microsoft .NET to 2.0 and had to update my Retrospect software to be compatible with that. Is that a clue to my problem?
Jeff

 

first, try the drive on another computer if you can, make sure the drive hasn't gone belly up

 

Try other usb ports. My usb device only works on one of my front usb ports.

 

No luck yet. I've tried it on another computer and same results - listed in Device Manager but not shown in My Computer.
Also, I have tried other USB ports directly on the machine and the others on the self-powered hub. No luck.

 

Does it show up in Disk Management?

Start, run dismgmt.msc

 

I don't seem to have dismgmt.msc or discmgmt.msc. Could it be called something else?

 

Oops!

Typo.

diskmgmt.msc

 

Nope, it ain't there either!

 

Any ideas?..................

 

any help anyone?

 

WOW!!!!
I stumbled upon my problem. I was poking around in the Programs folder and in the Maxtor folder was OneTouch.exe I tried it and a Maxtor window opened and said my drive was locked and wanted a password to unlock. Viola!
It unlocked and I heard a bong like when you plug in a new device. I looked in My Computer and there it is! I opened Retrospect ExpressHD and it lists 132 restore points, so it is ready to go again. Yee haw.
Thanks for your help. Happy New Year!

 

Hey, good to know. I've never seen this particular issue solved before.

Thanks for the info!

 

Yep, I'm pretty happy!
Maybe you have a solution for this:
When I boot my computer, as it loads Retrospect on startup, I see an icon appear and then disappear in the taskbar. Then a few more things load in the system tray, Then another Retrospect icon appears in the taskbar and can't be opened or closed. To get rid of it, I need to Open Retrospect using the system tray icon and then close it with a click of the X and then the taskbar icon goes away.
This problem has stayed with me, even after I updated my version of Retrospect recently.
Any ideas?