Ok I have a 160GB Maxtor 3200 USB drive and I noticed today that it wasn't showing up in my computer and in the device manager it had the yellow exclamation point. This drive has data that I can't afford to lose so I took desperate measures. I cracked the case open, took out the drive, and connected it directly to the IDE cable inside my computer. When I powered up my computer the drive made a weird clicking sound (which can't be good) and the drive didn't show up in my computer. I hope there is something I can do to save my data. Any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Check your bios settings to make sure the IDE is not dissabled. Also, try starting the system with only the power connected to the drive (no ata cable) to see if it clicks on it's own (sometimes caused by mainboard).
The hard drive isn't even recognized in the BIOS. It only recognizes the main hard drive that it boots Windows from.
Since it's connected to IDE now, are the jumpers on the HD set correctly? USB devices have issues all the time. I have fuses blown in my apartment on a weekly/bi-weekly basis and my computer and all external USB devices are usually effected. This obviously isn't good for any of my devices, but they keep chugging on. USB devices generally have more than one driver that needs to be installed in order to function properly and whenever my power goes out, it takes me more than one attempt to get them to show back up on my system.
