[jeffery_davis18]

I bought an external hard drive a few months ago and transferred all of my photos onto it. For a while the computer recognized it fine and there were no problems. Suddenly one day when I turned the external drive on it spun for about a second and then stopped for about 3. Then on again - and then off. The computer doesn't recognize it either. Um, Help! All of my photos from the last eight years are on that drive and I need to be able to access them! Does anyone know how I could recover them?

[crjdriver]

OK, first of all I would pull the drive out and connect it as an internal drive. See if you can access the data now. Post back with the result.

Now you see why we stress back ups so much. All drives fail; it is only a question of when it will fail.

Remember data you do not have at least two copies of [on separate media] is data you do not care about.

[SAMF2000]

First let me ask if its USB Powered or is it powered with its own AC Adapter. Sometimes there is something wrong with a USB Port ...either too many devices are using the USB Ports or the Port is bad. There is a limited amount of power from USB. Try plugging only the External HD In and nothing else and try another port. If your using an AC Adapter then the problem might be with the drive or the software for the the Drive.

[jeffery_davis18]

Well I bought a RAID 0 drive and an external case so that when I buy my new computer I can use it as an internal drive. But no computer that I have uses RAID right now. So I can't hook it up yet . It is also AC powered - not USB.