Seeking help regarding external hard drive

[chips17]

I recently ran into a problem with my 2nd hard drive which is a removeable hard drive disk connected by USB. I was hoping maybe someone would be able to give some insight on what my problem was. I have had this drive for over 2 years and never experienced a problem. All of a sudden what happened was that my computer would not allow me to access the drive. I know what you may be thinking but this is not the common problem of not formatting a new hard drive partition before using it. However everything connection-wise in the computer signals that the device is connectd properly and should function correctly. The problem I have been encountering is when I simply try to go through Windows Explorer and view the basic "My Computer" screen nothing at all will come. It will just be a the "My Computer" window and a clear white window. So this isn't the typical non-recognition of a hard drive. However once I disconnect my 2nd hard drive the "My Computer" explorer window works perfectly and I am able to view everything on all of the other drives. My fear is that the data on my external hard drive has been damaged and that is why I can not access anything on it. Sorry for making this so long but I was hoping that someone may be able to give me a little insight on what my problem could be. And then if the case is that some of my data has been damaged then what data recovery services would you recommend. I'm looking for any help at all. Thank you.

[flanzig1]

I would be more inclined to think that the external housing electronics have failed verses the HD inside the housing. If the HD is a 3.5", may be able to remove it from the housing and connected it directly to the PC.

[glc]

Does the drive show up in Disk Management? If so, what does it say about it?

[chips17]

Thank you for your quick responses.

flanzig I hope you're right. I wouldn't know if this has anything to do with the housing electronics but when I first turn on the hard drive and connect it to the computer I receive a few little pop-ups in the bottom right hand corner. They say:

USB to IDE
USB Mass Storage Device
Disk Drive

And also there is a green light on the hard drive's casing which in the past has told me that everything was working properly.

glc, thanks for you response as well. When I went into disk management it recognizes the hard drive and says that it is healthy. So I hope that is a good sign and a step in the right direction.

I still can not access anything that is on the drive but when I view it in Disk Management it has the correct capacity and the correct amount of free space on it when it was last functioning properly.

Once again, any other help would be much appreciated.