enobus1971

...and I am about to lose some very valuable data. I need some advice on what I should do.

First off, I know the worthwhile advice is to keep a constant backup of my data which is something I normally do but the reason for not backing up these particular files is because they are large in size and I guess I could just never get around to swapping DVD discs in and out of my disc drive and taking the necessary time to back up my files. Shame on me.

As for the description of the problem... I have an external 160 GB hard drive that is connected via USB through an enclosure (in other words it's an internal transformed into an external). I noticed a problem at the start of the weekend when I was switching some devices on my USB ports and I ended up with a USB malfunction message that I actually solved by uninstalling all of my USB devices and reconnecting once I would reboot XP. Fixed! Now I go to connect my external hard drive and I can access folders on the drive but for some reason, I can't run these files through their specifed applications. For instance, if I try to play a video file, Windows Media Player says that it either can't locate the file or it can't find the right codec file (which I have all the necessary codecs to play all formats of video files).

At one point I tried to access certain files on my external hard drive and they showed nothing. I thought I had lost all of my data, only to reboot and find that they're still there. I tried to copy files to my desktop only to have it move real slow and if it would start copying it would get half way through the copy and a Cannot Copy: Access Error would pop up.

I run a Pentium 4 system with 2.8 GHz processor, 1.5G RAM, 1x160 Gig internal hard drive, and 1x160 Gig external hard drive. Other peripherals include a P4P800 motherboard, 256 & 128 Geforce video graphics card, Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card, USB port, Firewire port, Windows XP SP2.

I wonder if there's a hard drive recovery application I could use or even something I could do with the hard drive that would allow me to copy all of my files faster to another hard drive. Please, I have very valuable data on this drive and I don't want to lose it. Please help.

Thanks in advance,

enobus1971

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Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz, ASUSTek P4P800 with i865P/PE/G/i848P Chipset, OCZ DDR-SDRAM 512 MBytes x2 + 512 MBytes Nanya DDR-SDRAM - Total 1536 MBytes DDR-SDRAM, 160GB Int Seagate Barracuda hard drive, 160GB Ext Seagate Barracuda hard drive (internal enclosed), 256 MB Geforce FX 5200 and 128 MB Geforce4 MX 4000, Dual monitors, Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum w/5.1 surround Logitech Z-640 speakers.

lavieinjuste

take the hard drive out of the case and put it in as a secondary internal drive
replace your cd drive if you have to...

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