external HD error?

I plug in my external HD and it shows up in "my computer", but I double click to open it and I get a message saying
"F: is not accessible. The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."
Someone please help me fix this. Please please please. Thank you

 

has the drive ever worked before?

 

oh yeah, it's worked lots of times. I went into the device manager and it shows up there, say it's working properly and the drivers are up to date. I go into the other part of it details or something and it has nothing listed for the size of it.

 

there is a problem with your usb ports then.try updating the drivers for it or you can purchase an external usb 4 port hub,but the problem is definately with your pc trying to use the usb port.

 

I'll check it out. I have it plugged into a new usb 2.0, 4 port hub card I installed.

 

hows it doing?

 

I bet you're right. I just looked in th device manager and there isn't anything that says anything about the 2.0 root hub on there that looks like the hub's manual. Now I have to try and find the disc for that??? who knows where that is?

 

actually it might be there under tha VIA stuff, but it looks nothing like the book.

 

found the disc. BRB.

 

go to the manufacturers website and download drivers from there.

 

well I put disc in and it booted up. I clicked open the driver folder. Double clicked the setup.exe....and nothing happened?? Now what?

 

reboot in safe mode and try it again.

 

yes,but go to www.autopatcher.com and download the august full release first. There are a ton of XP fixes,tweaks,hotfixes,etc. there. Try them before you go SP/2.

 

I've got SP2 already installed. I have finally got the disc to run and have installed and uninstalled and let the PC find new hard ware (except) when it booted with HD plugged in). This is frustrating

 

Ok, I tried to plug it into the other open port on the card and still nothing. So I plugged it into one of the 1.1 ports in the front of my PC and the lil balloon saying "this device can perform faster blah blah blah" then listed the available ports in the 2.0 card and 3 out of 4 showed unused and 2 are being used, one by scanner (which it showed) and the other by printer (which wasn't listed) (but printer works) and HD didn't work in 1.1 port, so I went into "my computer" and "my computer wasn't responding as it does that also in the 2.0 port, so I ended task and here I am again. I also DL'd that sp2 update thing also, (not installed yet) should I??? Thank you also for your help on this.

 

alright, I'll be back

 

now, I don't think something worked right with that, or I dl'd the wrong thing. Says something about no previous something installed and also I double click on the icon and file not found do I want to delete shortcut?? but I did do the system restore prior to installation

 

sorry, that's what I meant. I created a restore point.I have this new DL going that is 257 MB, is that right? The first thing I dl'd was like 28 or 60 something.

 

alright, finally got the right thing going. 266mb says it'll be done in about an hour, so I'm going to go relax for a bit. I'll let it finish and install it and then come back to report. Thank you again

 

ok, a week later I'm back from vacation. I had dl'd and installed autopatcher, had to reboot and no one said anything about user log on name and password (which I'd forgotten). I had to take the whole rig into the local shop. They were able to log me on. They were not able to fix this problem. said somehow the external got into raw format. they ran a data recovery program and said they came up with the folders but couldn't get anything out of them. Recomended me to ontrack.com. said it'll cost me about a grand for them to go into a dust free environment with their space suits on and somehow get my data off the discs themselves. But... possibly since the drive is recognised by the tower they could retrieve my data for me via the internet. Well I get home and all hooked up........now the external drive is plugged into the tower and it's not showing up in "my computer". Any advice other than smashing the pi$$ out of this thing?? Thank you

 

what about the external not showing up now though?

 

the external is just a usb plug in. (Maxtor 5000) I forgot how to, or I don't know how to access the bios? I run a presario 5080 us.