USB 500GB Hard Drive problem

First of all, I have a Dell Inspiron Quad core, 4GB ram, XP. Also installed are two iOmega USB external drives, 360GB and 500GB, both FAT32 units.

I have run this setup for quite a while with no problems. I use the 500GB drive as a "G" drive to hold download data. Had no problems last night, leave computer running all night, this morning I have blue screen. Turn everything off, let it sit, turn back on, now everything seems OK. This has happened a couple of times before, but always boots back up.

When I turn on the USB drives, they both fire up, show the little window for Autoplay, then the window for What Do You Want To Do. Fine.

Decide to backup a few files from my main drive (in case I have a problem with it) to the G-drive, which has room. After a minute of transfering a folder gfrom C to G, a window pops up saying that it can't tranfer a particular file, and the tranfer stops.

G-drive seems sorta dead. The computer recognises it in My Computer, but won't open and show the files on it. Right clicking on G-drive shows 0 room used, 0 room left, all blue disc. Also says drive is working properly.

Nothing will open the drive, all onboard diagnostics says it is working properly. Try to run a Norton Disc Doctor on it, and it says it does not contain a recognised file system.

No amount of unplugging or reboots help. All the iOmega webpage stuff refers to a problem where the computer does not recognise the drive. My computer recognises it, but won't access it.

Any ideas? I don't have critical info on the drive, but there is a lot of files I sure don't want to lose. I would think that since the computer recognises the drive that something is going on. I just don't know why it won't access the drive.

stanger53@gmail.com

 

If possible, try the drive on a different PC and see if it behaves the same way (and it probably will). The first thing I would do is try to rescue the most important files first. I had an external USB drive do the exact same thing you're describing here, you can read about how I was able to recover the files in this thread, and how I permanently fixed the issue in this thread. The program listed in the first link/thread should allow you to at least access the drive to save the more important things first, just in case the steps in the 2nd thread don't work, because the program in the 1st link does not actually perform a repair of any type, it just allows you to access the data so it can be copied to a safe location (hopefully). Anyway- let us know how it goes, I hope this info helps!

:-D

[dlb]

(BTW- it's not a good idea to post your email address in an open forum 'cuz the spam bots may harvest it and flood your inbox with :crap )