Data on my Simpletech 160GB is gone...?
Arrggh, I'll go nuts soon...
Here's what happened:
About a month ago I bought a Simpletech 160 GB external harddrive (USB connected) to back up my photos, music and movies. That worked reasonable well. I plugged in the harddrive, Windows recognized the new hardware and it showed up in Windows Explorer as "Signature Mini (F:)" (I have a Toshiba laptop that runs on Windows XP Service Pack 3).
A couple of days ago when I connected the USB-drive it seemed as if it started to copy some files back (and forth?) to/from the drive. The whole process got stuck however, such that I had to press cancel. I got some sort of error message saying "data may have been lost... bla bla bla". I rebooted and windows performed a chkdsk/consitency check and corrected a bunch of file name errors on the Simpletech Drive, and I was up and running again.
Yesterday, the same thing happened again, i.e. drive (automatically) tried to copy some files, the whole thing got stuck, and I had to abort with a new error message. Only this time, I was not so lucky that Windows did a chkdsk for me.
Since then, every time I connect the external harddrive, it powers up (the red light), the blue light comes on for a second or so, just enough so that the drive (occassionally) shows up in Windows Explorer. However, the disc name (Signature Mini..) is now gone and it shows up as a drive with 0 byte available, thus, it is as if nothing is there. This is most frustating, and since it now only says "Local Disk (F:)", chkdsk and the usual Windows-problem solving tools don't work.
Can anyone please help me?? I do have a lot of data on the drive which I don't want to lose.
Here's what happened:
About a month ago I bought a Simpletech 160 GB external harddrive (USB connected) to back up my photos, music and movies. That worked reasonable well. I plugged in the harddrive, Windows recognized the new hardware and it showed up in Windows Explorer as "Signature Mini (F:)" (I have a Toshiba laptop that runs on Windows XP Service Pack 3).
A couple of days ago when I connected the USB-drive it seemed as if it started to copy some files back (and forth?) to/from the drive. The whole process got stuck however, such that I had to press cancel. I got some sort of error message saying "data may have been lost... bla bla bla". I rebooted and windows performed a chkdsk/consitency check and corrected a bunch of file name errors on the Simpletech Drive, and I was up and running again.
Yesterday, the same thing happened again, i.e. drive (automatically) tried to copy some files, the whole thing got stuck, and I had to abort with a new error message. Only this time, I was not so lucky that Windows did a chkdsk for me.
Since then, every time I connect the external harddrive, it powers up (the red light), the blue light comes on for a second or so, just enough so that the drive (occassionally) shows up in Windows Explorer. However, the disc name (Signature Mini..) is now gone and it shows up as a drive with 0 byte available, thus, it is as if nothing is there. This is most frustating, and since it now only says "Local Disk (F:)", chkdsk and the usual Windows-problem solving tools don't work.
Can anyone please help me?? I do have a lot of data on the drive which I don't want to lose.
Computers & Internet - SimpleTech - 160GB USB 2.0 / FireWire External Open Box (STIU2F36160OBB1)...
Answers & Comments
Take the drive out and put it in a new external case. the copying may have been caused by a virus in the computer.