Yep, it's a known fact that external hard disks tend to break down faster then internal ones. But you do have a backup of everything that's on it, don't you? Then you're prepared for the (maybe inevitable) act of throwing it away and asking Santaclaus for a new one (2 days to go yet).
But before you do that:
1. Try it on another USB-port on your own PC. Then with another cable.
2. Try it on another PC.
3. See what Disk Management (in XP, Vista or 7) says about the disk
4. Try DIY recovery software (like RECUVA or GETDATABACK or ZERO ASSUMPTION RECOVER)
5. Find (and pay) a professional data recovery company
6. Try deleting all partitions and recreate them
It might be hopeless or too expensive. But it's worth a try.
Kees
Imation Apollo 320 gb hard disk was fine..suddenly, the system reads it..shows occupied space but no file is accesible
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