Going to that same place: Right click my computer/computer management/storage/disk management.. see if that drive is even listed there. I had something similar, and when I got my drive replaced, it still didn't show, so had to go to the above and set it up! As I recall I had to right click on the white space to the right of the drive.

did you check in Computer Management > Disk Management > Stalus of Disk > shoud be Healthy, if not see if it will up date to Healthy.

uhh, what interface is the drive inside? if you bypassed the usb....

not sure all the formats are supported- check the site- but give PhotoRec http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec a shot, or Trinity Rescue Kit- http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1&front_id=12 ?

maybe try out Recuva- http://www.recuva.com/

ARRRRGH! Maxtor One Touch III 200 GB External Hard Drive has all of my iTunes, digital picture archive, a bunch of VOBS/ISO's and misc. word files on it, about 25 GB total. Computer is not recognizing it (o/s is XP) as a drive any longer, looked in control panel drives, and it shows up on pc but does not open, so all files are in limbo till I figure it out. Called Maxtor/Seagate, they can sell me a recovery disk or I can send it in for $ to recover files, they said that the master boot or system file is damaged or erased, and they were really rude to me. (My research on this subject shows this is a huge problem with Maxtor externals, and it just 'happens' and too bad). The good news: it's all recoverable, no damaged files, just a missing master file somewhere, possibly the ones with the $ prefix? The bad news: Tried a few recovery programs, none can seem to jog the drive to open on the pc to get to the undamaged files. Need help and ideas on this one. The disk recovery program didn't seem to find the drive either, but it was confusing to me--I think I know enough to get into trouble but am missing some secret tech knowledge to get the problem solved. Please help!