External USB hard drive hidden

Philip M · 03-02-2009, 04:10 PM

For three years I have backed up every 10 minutes to an external USB-powered Encryp2disk enclosure with a Toshiba MK1033GAS 120GB hard drive. Yesterday it became inaccessible from my PC.

It is seen by BIOS (as it is in the boot-order list) but not by Disk Management, Device Manager, Windows Explorer or My Computer, and not by PC Wizard, Testdisk6.1 or Find-and-Mount.

The external disk and cables work perfectly on my laptop, so I assume the problem is in the PC. It is probably not a power supply problem, as it still does not work on the PC using the split USB cable needed to get enough power from two laptop USB sockets. Voltages are reported by PC Wizard to be 1.37V, 3.40V, 5.10V & 11.94V.

System Restore does not work (it goes through the motions and then says that it could not restore to the selcted point).

It may be coincidence, but on that day I installed Microsoft Office Sign-Live add-in and uninstalled it because it prevented Word, Outlook and Excel from loading.

PC is HP Pavilion, BIOS is Phoenix, mainboard is Asus NODUSM, processor is Athlon 64 x2 3800+ @ 2000MHz and it is running XP SP3.

Any advice or guidance would be gratefully received.

Philip

03-02-2009, 04:10 PM	#1 (permalink)
Philip M Registered User Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 4 OS: XP	External USB hard drive hidden For three years I have backed up every 10 minutes to an external USB-powered Encryp2disk enclosure with a Toshiba MK1033GAS 120GB hard drive. Yesterday it became inaccessible from my PC. It is seen by BIOS (as it is in the boot-order list) but not by Disk Management, Device Manager, Windows Explorer or My Computer, and not by PC Wizard, Testdisk6.1 or Find-and-Mount. The external disk and cables work perfectly on my laptop, so I assume the problem is in the PC. It is probably not a power supply problem, as it still does not work on the PC using the split USB cable needed to get enough power from two laptop USB sockets. Voltages are reported by PC Wizard to be 1.37V, 3.40V, 5.10V & 11.94V. System Restore does not work (it goes through the motions and then says that it could not restore to the selcted point). It may be coincidence, but on that day I installed Microsoft Office Sign-Live add-in and uninstalled it because it prevented Word, Outlook and Excel from loading. PC is HP Pavilion, BIOS is Phoenix, mainboard is Asus NODUSM, processor is Athlon 64 x2 3800+ @ 2000MHz and it is running XP SP3. Any advice or guidance would be gratefully received. Philip