Files on External Drive Keep Disappearing

[Brina]

I just got a new computer and I'm trying to use my external hard drive that I used with the old one on the new one. I hooked it up to the new one and it seemed fine. So I started copying the data (mostly pictures) from the external drive to the new computer and everything disappeared. The external drive is still visible under My Computer, but all of the folders in it are empty. I hooked it back up to my old computer and the files were still there and it worked fine. Even though the folders say they are empty, it still shows that part of the space is used up. If I unhook the external drive, restart the computer, hook it back up, the files are there again. But anytime I try to access any of them, they disappear. The drive is a Buslink 2.0 USB drive if that helps. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do? Thanks.

[Brina]

I'm not sure what this all means, but when it does work, it says its a FAT32. And when the files disappear, it says its a RAW.

[Paul Komski]

Just to confirm. The drive works OK on the old computer but misbehaves in the new computer.

Which version of Windows is running on both machines and how large is the external Hard Drive?

Some large drives come with software that needs to be installed (particularly on older operating systems) in order for the drive to accessed without problems.

[Brina]

Yes, it works fine on the old machine, but not on the newer one. I have Windows XP Home Edition on both machines. Both also have SP2. The drive is 80GB. I have a disk that came with it, but it's the driver for older versions of Windows only. The driver for XP is built in. Another thing I noticed it's doing is when the drive does show up and is working, the files seems to slowly disappear until they are all gone. Right at this moment for example, nothing is showing up at all. But when I restart, the drive will show up, but everything will empty or just a few of the folders will be empty. Then all of it slowly disappears and the drive in My Computer disappears. Thanks for any help you can give!

[jlreich]

Did you build the new machine or is it OEM (Dell, HP etc.)? If you built it did you install the motherboard drivers?

[Brina]

No, I didn't build it. Its a emachine T3410.

[Brina]

I sent an e-mail to the manufacturer of my hard drive. They said it sounded like a compatibilty issue since it worked on one computer and not the other. I did manage to get it to work long enough to copy all the files over to the new computer though so I can use them that way. It's working right at this moment, but the files may disappear at any time. At least I got them all copied over before they disappear for good :) .