windows explorer will not open ext hard drive

hi,
I have a Seagate 160 g external hard drive. It has approximately 40 g free. I downloaded a program which may have caused some problems. I deleted the program, and did a restore back to about a week ago when I had just got through doing a major deep cleaning on my computer. I am pretty sure that my computer is clean. My problem is this: windows explorer sees the ext hard drive, however when I try to access the hard drive, it locks the computer up. What do I need to do to be able to access the drive? I have unplugged the hard drive, shut the computer down and tried to access the hard drive again. Once I click on the ext hard drive, my computer locks. I appreciate any help that y'all might have. This hard drive is more or less the one that has my working files. Thanks for any help. Diane

 

Have you tried removing the external drive from the Device Manager and reinstalling it? It may do the trick.

 

What OS are you using?
If it is before XP try reloading the driver.
(not sure if W2k needs the driver)

If XP or Vista or the driver reload does not work.
Check you external hard drive with the manufacturers tools.
Seatools for Windows.
If the drive is not damaged run checkdisk on the drive.

 

Thanks Chookers & PeterParker for replying to my post. I did try the Device Manager route, which states that there is nothing wrong. I did the Sea Tools test last night. The harddrive shows up in the list to be tested, but when I tried the test, I got a message stating "no test available". I also tried another usb port to see if there was a problem there. The external hard drive shows up under windows explorer, but my computer locks up just as soon as I click on the hard drive. I can't access the hard drive to do a chkdsk, defrag or anything else. Does this mean that my hard drive has crashed? Is there a way to possibly clean dust from the hard drive? Thanks for any help! Diane

 

Did you try the hardware on someone else's computer?
abri

 

Good point, Abri - always a good test.

Also, try booting your computer into Safe mode and check in Device Manager and see what's there. Remove ALL references to the external hard disk and then restart in Normal mode, installing the hard disk as though you've never used it before. You might find more than one reference to the disk if you use Safe mode. (I once saw a machine which in Safe mode claimed it had about 6 monitors, 1 CD drive and 2 burners, 2 mice, 2 keyboards, a USB flash disk and I don't remember what else! It had 1 CD drive, 1 of the other usual items and no flash disk!) Getting rid of all references to a device that isn't working properly using Safe mode and then installing fresh can sometimes fix the problem.