Lost External Hard drive to corrupt file

[ladytink]

I just bought a HP External HD with 150 GB. After the second week of having it I experience a corrupt file and it wouldn't let me into the HD to retrieve my files. Finally, since I had very little on it I went ahead after trying everything else and re-formatted. Now 3 weeks later I am getting the same message with the same result...I can't get to my files on this HD. Tells me to run chkdisk but that runs tells me to run it at start up but when I start up chkdsk doesn't run. I now have allot of files on there and really don't want to lose them. Any ideas what is causing this and how to fix it for now. If/When I retrieve my files I am going to call HP to see about getting a replacement as I feel this should n't be happening/....am I right about that?
Please help. Oh yeah, I have Gateway Penten 4/528mb ram, with Home XP.
thanks glad I found this forum.
Ladytink

[Duke of Rezin]

Try using System Restore while the hard drive is connected and welcome to Windrivers.

[AlienDyne]

You should ask for a HDD replacement only if the drive is proved to be defective. Since the problems started after the external drive's installation, then probably your system is working properly. On the other hand, the problem may not be caused by the HDD itself. As an external one, there may be a problem with the controller of the external rack that is connected to the drive. Of course, that's not your problem. If it is defective, it needs to be replaced.
You should try System Restore to see if there's a previous state of Windows available and if so, restore it. If there are no previous states available, you should try a third-party restore utility.