If it's any consolation...it should be under warranty for one year from date of purchase or mfg whichever is later.
This is my first posting, so please forgive me if i leave anything out. I've had a Maxtor One Touch II 300 GB external hard drive for about 6 months now. I tried running a game off it tonight through my laptop (Compaq Presario 900 w/ Amd athlon processor on XP) only to have the whole computer lockup. Since it came back, the Maxtor has been no longer accessible. Windows will still acknowledge when it's plugged in through either my my USB 1.1 port or 2.0 notebook card. But when I try opening the hard drive, I get two alternating error messages. The first is ''The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable'' and the second is ''The parameter is incorrect.'' I also keep getting ''Data Execution Prevention'' notices from Windows.
I've read different forums on the similar topics and searched Maxtor but nothing seems to fit my problem. One solution I tried is to type chkdsk g:/f in a command prompt. The response I get is ''The type of the file system is NTFS.'' & ''Unable to determine volume version and state. CHKDSK aborted'' Also, Device Status says that ''The device is working properly.''
So I have a few questions. Are there any solutions to fix it? Is the data recoverable? Would it work again if I formated the drive? Or do I now have a $250 paper weight that has lost all my pictures, work documents, and music?
I would greatly appreciate any help.

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic