external hard drive does not show on vista

i-luv-free-stuff

hi all

im a bit desperate now as i have searched all over but cant find any answers.

i have an external hard drive i keep all my backed up photos etc on but the other day it seemed to just vanish and doesnt show up in my computer.
it shows it computer management and it shows as disk 1 like in the link below:
http://tinypic.com/r/2u40as2/6

i have tried to initialise the disk but i get an error which is:

data error (cyclic redundancy check)

does anyone have any ideas how i can get my hard drive recognised and get my data back?

many thanks

pcombo

Right click and assign a drive letter, It wont display anything in my computer untill it has a drive.

closed

If it's really a backup, you should have 2 copies?

It's probably caput. Try a different pc - if you have a desktop available you can get an ide/sata cable to connect it internally, and might have more joy getting off data that way using getdataback or similar.

i-luv-free-stuff

pcombo wrote: »

Right click and assign a drive letter, It wont display anything in my computer untill it has a drive.

right click where?

pcombo

where it says unallocated right click there.

i-luv-free-stuff

closed wrote: »

If it's really a backup, you should have 2 copies?

It's probably caput.

well i tended to put stuff on this drive when my main drive on laptop was becoming full so i dont have everything on my original drive if that makes sense!

closed

Lots of people do that, then when the disk fails found out the flaws, its not a backup if you only have one copy - always keep at least 2 copies of important data, and preferably one on read only media (DVD/CD etc).

i-luv-free-stuff

pcombo wrote: »

where it says unallocated right click there.

the only options that i can click on when i right click are:
new simple volume
properties
help

there is no option to assign a drive letter.

i-luv-free-stuff

closed wrote: »

If it's really a backup, you should have 2 copies?

It's probably caput. Try a different pc - if you have a desktop available you can get an ide/sata cable to connect it internally, and might have more joy getting off data that way.

and i tried on my mates pc before with no luck :embarasse

closed

Internal cable, and data recovery software is your best bet, no guarantee it will work though.

i-luv-free-stuff

closed wrote: »

Internal cable, and data recovery software is your best bet, no guarantee it will work though.

i tried data recovery on my laptop but as it doesnt show in windows the software cant find it.
i think i need to assign a drive letter but i dont know how.