Two possible causes. One is the usb ports on the computer are the problem or the usb in the drive itself.

First try the drive on a differant port and on a differant computer. If it works then the problem is the usb ports on your computer. If not then it is the smartdisk.

If you contact the store or verbatim they may replace the drive if you have warrenty but you have a slim to none chance of seeing your data again. You may be able to get Verbatim to say they will recover it but don't count on that or on them actually doing it.

These external drives use a normal hard drive inside a case with a usb interface. The drives are pretty reliable but the usb interface does fail. What I have done to recover files from these drives is to use a external usb drive case. These are the case and the usb interface you buy and then you can put in what ever hard drive you want to. These cases can be pretty cheap $20 and up.

What you need to do or get someone to do for you is to take the hard drive out of the verbatim case and put it into the new external usb case. Once that is in then you will have full acess to your data again.

If you want to try this it really is a simple thing to do. You just need a set of jewllers screw drivers or eyeglass screwdrivers. There will be one connector on the drive itself. The hard part might be takign apart the verbatim case. They may hide the screw(s) under a label on the ends by the connectors.

If you want to contemplate doing this yourself then do a search for External Disk Drive Assembly Instructions you should find several pages that show how to do this and several videos. Here is a link to one on youtube (there are lots more on there)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_OPoZl8jZI

This won't be your model but other than the shape and color of the cases USB drives are all the same.