Sudden eSATA HDD issues

[AndrewGS]

I've had a WD HDD in an eSATA external housing for about a year and it had worked flawlessly until the other night. I opened "My Computer" to put some files on the external drive, but it didn't show up. I restarted the computer and when the aSATA adapter screen showed up the external drive wasn't listed, then Windows wouldn't boot. So, I turned off the external drive, restarted the computer and windows booted as normal. I then tried to turn the external drive on and Windows froze for a minute, then resumes as normal until I opened the "My Computer" window and it froze for another minute. The external drive didn't show up this time either. Since then I've tried starting the computer several times with the external switched on but I get the same results as before.

Any ideas?

 

[<[MaTT]>]

OK is it plugged in, LOL jks.

Did you crash your computer recently, that can corrupt files, thats the most sensible reason i can think of right now but you can try another esata drive in that port or try without any external HDDs or try with a different internal HDD. If you want to eliminate the port as the problem test the port with different external and internal aswell (this tells you if its hardware or software problem)

 

[AndrewGS]

OK is it plugged in, LOL jks.

Did you crash your computer recently, that can corrupt files, thats the most sensible reason i can think of right now but you can try another esata drive in that port or try without any external HDDs or try with a different internal HDD. If you want to eliminate the port as the problem test the port with different external and internal aswell (this tells you if its hardware or software problem)

No crashes. It has worked well up until about a week ago. My computer works fine when the external HDD is switched off. I have no other eSATA ports (PCI adapter) nor do I have any other eSATA drives to test it with.