Portable Hard Drive help

[Kyklis]

I just got a brand new 160 GB hard drive yesterday, and it worked fine. I just needed somewhere to store a lot of games/movies to clear my own hard drive a bit. Right before I went to bed, I shut it off, and put the computer into stand-by.

This morning I get up, turn on the hard-drive and the computer. First off, my CPU usage shot up to 80-100. Then, I couldn't even get into the hard-drive. Everytime I clicked on it, it froze and I had to end process explorer.

Basically, i'm pissed off, and have no idea what's wrong with it. I've restart my computer, and as soon as my laptop gets back, i'm going to try the harddrive on it to see if maybe it's just a problem with my computer

If it isn't, what the hell. Anybody know what a potential problem could be?

[Pred]

Might've been bricked..

[FliesLikeABrick]

There's a chance the hard drive has a defect in it, and it showed up after the drive was used for a while.

If it doesn't work on your laptop, I'd be glad to take a look at it and help you try to recover the data.  This is something I specialize in at work and at my job back at school, using Linux tools to recover data from failing hard drives (amateur data recovery), as opposed to paying thousands for professional data recovery.  If you wanted  to send me the drive, I could look at it, but something to think about:  how much of the data on the drive is illegal and/or replaceable?  How much of it do you actually need?

[Mangled*]

Possibly using old USB drivers?

I dunno...

If you got it from a shop (and not a website) take it back and tell them and ask if you can try connecting it up to one of their computers. If it's faulty get a replacement or refund.

[FliesLikeABrick]

Right, but getting it replaced will lose all of his data.  If he needs any data off of it, he needs to have something done before trying to get it replaced

[Kyklis]

FLAB: I've only had the drive for a day, so luckily I haven't transfered important data onto it yet. Right now, all it contains are games. Most of these would be easy to get back; freeware games that would not take long at all to download again. But I also transfered several full commercial games over to it, which would be a bit hard to get back. For the record, i've purchased all of the games, but because i'm horribly unorganized, lost/wrecked the CDs. So i'd have to say that yes, some of the games on there would be technically illegal, as I have downloaded some.

EDIT: Also, I live in Canada. I don't have any important data on it right now, so honestly, data recovery isn't a big deal right now. I was more or less wondering if there was any way to fix the problem, or if my only choice is to get it replaced.

[Pred]

Sounds like malware to me.

[FliesLikeABrick]

You can download a knoppix or ubuntu CD (use google) and boot that.  That won't install or anything, it will give you a Linux environment to work in.  I'd recommend the ubuntu one for this.

Boot your computer using the CD, then once it  is booted plug the hard drive in.  See if you can read all of your files there.

Sounds like malware to me.

nah, malware doesn't do things like this.  What do they have to gain?  Usually the point of malware is to help someone, somewhere make money

[Kyklis]

FLAB: Thanks for your help. Do you perhaps have an IM program to walk me through this? I'm aware that once I boot using Ubuntu you probably won't be able to help anymore, but i'd like to make sure I know what i'm doing before I jump in.

[FliesLikeABrick]

Unless you've got some weird network setup, you should be able to go online just fine on Ubuntu using gaim or IRC.  My contact information is all in my profile.