Hey, folks.

I found this board while desperately searching for a fix for my Ext. HD.

My sister unplugged it today while it was writing, and now it won't recognize properly. It used to designate itself properly as the F:\ as soon as it hooked up. Since the unplug, it calls itself a USB Mass Storage Device in Device Manager, can't be recognized in Disk Management (so I can't designate a letter drive [f:\ etc.]), doesn't show up in My Computer, and doesn't need a driver as it says its driver is up-to-date (I have reinstalled the driver anyway, to no avail).

I've tried it with my laptop (which the HD was pulled out of) and my PC; the above results happen with both. I've tried to uninstall the Mass Storage Device in Device Manager, but when I reboot the drive, it reinstalls itself as Mass Storage Device, not as it did as F:\.

When I first purchased it, it ran just perfect out of the box, no additional drivers needed. It did have start-up files on it, but obviously I can't get to those. I've got a few other Ext. HDs and they still boot up and run perfectly. The USB ports aren't the problem, either. I've run iPods, other HDs, and a mouse through all the ports.

The drive is a Comstar 1TB External HD. I'm running Windows XP on both computers. I've got over 200GBs on it, and as I run most of my applications off it, I'm really high n' dry.

Any help would be so appreciated. I'm desperate. If someone is so kind as to help and needs more info, please let me know.

TJ