Carol...when you go to My Computer, is the drive showing up there?

This may sound stupid but is the External turned on? The reason I ask is because I had the same thing happen to me a while ago. When I called my computer tech he suggested that I turn it on. Idid and lo and behold it worked. Boy did I feel like a fool!!! Another thing, dont ever disconect it without doing it "Safely". I did once and lost a lot of my things! Good luck with it!

sometimes the connector for the external drive can go bad. First thing is make sure it is plugged in to the ac adapter, then is it plugged into the computer? and of course turned on. Are there any lights coming on when you turn it on? it's possible that a tech could pull the drive out of the housing and recover the data for you. if you've tried everything and still can't get it to work take the drive to a computer tech you trust to check it out.
I have an online friend that backs up all his data 3 times, lol, and keeps the copies off site just in case something happens

Carol, I agree with all that has been said here, plus...If your External HD doesn't show in My Computer, check all connections. Do this by unplugging and plugging in again. Then restart your computer. If it's still not recognized you can check to make sure your USB ports are working. You do that by going to your Device Manager, looking for your USB ports. If you see any little yellow warning signs by any, right click on it and uninstall. You then restart your computer, and both XP and VISTA will reinstall those driver for you.
I also agree with Terri. I back up important and irreplacable materials 2 ways........DVD and external hardrive. Good Luck.

Okay you guys, thank you all so much for your help, first Sooze no it isn't, well this model doesn't have a on and off button, Maggie I did all the above. Well lucky for me that my neighbor is a tech by trade, and he just took it home and said oh my, trouble in river city. But there is a good out come to all of this, he was able to retrive all my data. There was pics and scrapbooking stuff, pics were my big concern they are all right. So he got all my stuff off and said the drive is shot. It was a Western Digital, he said it is crap. So now you can bet you bottom dollar that I will be backing up again on a DVD!!!!!!
Thanks again everyone, love ya all
Hugs
Carol

Yay for techie neighbors!!! lol

Ditto to Terri. Glad you saved your files, Carol.

Glad to hear that!

Good to hear you at least managed to salvage your precious pics!

Oh I am so happy that he was able to save everything on the drive. I had a lot of scrapbooking stuff on there, but like I said the pictures were the important thing.
This neighbor is a life saver, he has pulled me out more than once. He just like's my goodie baskets I fix him for his kindness. I tell him that I think he sneaks over and does something to the equipment, just so he can get a basket. lololol he just laughs and says, oh yeah never thought of that, lolol
Well guys thanks for your concerns and help and suggestions. You are great friends.
Hugs
Carol