USB Mass Storage - cannot start

[saiku]

Hello

I have a Western Digital Caviar 250GB in a CompUSA enclosure (IDE -> USB2.0). This was working fine until few days back. When I plug the disk into my laptop, initially it says "No drivers found for this device" but a minute later the message turns to "This driver cannot start" with an yellow exclamation mark in the Device Manager. I have an Acer laptop. I tried other USB flashdrives, including my cell phone, which works fine with the same laptop. Also, this external drive does not work on other laptops too. I tried to uninstall the usb mass storage driver and let the windows XP install the driver again but no luck. I have some critical data on this drive and badly need to retrieve it.
What are my options? Anyway I can make the drive work? Could the IDE cable gone bad? or the USB cable? Haven't tried replacing them yet. Do I need to update or install anything? Greatly appreciate any help.

Thanks
zooey

[CCT]

Hello saiku:

Some people who had experienced similar problems have found that, upon opening the casing for the external drive, a connection had come loose.

Others, however, have found that the external case interface board had problems and then connected the drive itself to their internal connectors OR used a new external case or adapters to connect it. An example;

http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/ac...scupc1000.html

Finally, some have found that the drives themselves had failed (all do eventually fail).

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers Saiku

The fact that it fails to install on another machine means it's faulty. If it's out of warranty then CCT's suggestions will save you some money, if it is in warranty, take it back!

[saiku]

Thanks very much for your replies. Is it possible recover data from a failed drive?

[NooNoo]

It depends on how it fails...
You can test it by directly connecting to the computer instead of using the usb caddy.