I cant see the file on my external hard drive

jt2769 · 02-20-2008, 10:33 AM

Please help,

I have a 300gb hard drive fire wire connection (fat32) (I am on wxp) it has been working fine with no problems, today i turned it on as usual and went to view a dvd i have stored on it, i realised that my pc could not open the file, I turned off the hard drive and turned it back on (ensuring that it was not busy) My pc recognises it, in my computer as normal but when i double click on it there are no files inside, I does tell me how much free space there is and how much has been used. (so the files are still on the hard drive)

I have tried un-installing and re-installing and I have done disk checks, I have re-assigned a new drive letter but this does not fix the problem.

please help. ( have important pics and folders in this)

regards JT

**Deleted090308** · 02-21-2008, 02:12 AM

Hi

Shut the computer down and disconnect the drive.
Take the power and firewire plugs out.
Start the computer - when Windows is up and running:
Connect the drive enclosure to its power source, then put the firewire plug in.
Connect the firewire to the computer.

If that doesn't help:
Check the connections inside the drive enclosure.

Still not working?
Mount the drive inside a desktop PC.

~~Computer_Doctor~~ · 02-21-2008, 03:09 PM

Hi jt2769,

Hmm........If you have another firewire connector, try plugging the hard drive to that spare slot, probabl you have tried this already.

It could be a bad external enclosure connector as this happen on some of my client's external hard drives before.

If you are confident in opening up the enclosure, you can do what the last post said. Open up the enclosure, take the hard drive out, and then plug it directly to the computer. Possible you will need an IDE or SATA adapter so you can plug the hdd directly to the computer.

02-20-2008, 10:33 AM	#1 (permalink)
jt2769 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 2 OS: XP SP2	I cant see the file on my external hard drive Please help, I have a 300gb hard drive fire wire connection (fat32) (I am on wxp) it has been working fine with no problems, today i turned it on as usual and went to view a dvd i have stored on it, i realised that my pc could not open the file, I turned off the hard drive and turned it back on (ensuring that it was not busy) My pc recognises it, in my computer as normal but when i double click on it there are no files inside, I does tell me how much free space there is and how much has been used. (so the files are still on the hard drive) I have tried un-installing and re-installing and I have done disk checks, I have re-assigned a new drive letter but this does not fix the problem. please help. ( have important pics and folders in this) regards JT

02-21-2008, 02:12 AM	#2 (permalink)
Deleted090308 Not... Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 22,277 OS: Xp	Re: I cant see the file on my external hard drive Hi Shut the computer down and disconnect the drive. Take the power and firewire plugs out. Start the computer - when Windows is up and running: Connect the drive enclosure to its power source, then put the firewire plug in. Connect the firewire to the computer. If that doesn't help: Check the connections inside the drive enclosure. Still not working? Mount the drive inside a desktop PC.

02-21-2008, 03:09 PM	#3 (permalink)
~~Computer_Doctor~~ Troubled Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 644 OS: Windows XP	Re: I cant see the file on my external hard drive Hi jt2769, Hmm........If you have another firewire connector, try plugging the hard drive to that spare slot, probabl you have tried this already. It could be a bad external enclosure connector as this happen on some of my client's external hard drives before. If you are confident in opening up the enclosure, you can do what the last post said. Open up the enclosure, take the hard drive out, and then plug it directly to the computer. Possible you will need an IDE or SATA adapter so you can plug the hdd directly to the computer.