External Hard Drive folder not accessible: Incorrect Function

Hi,

I need help on an external hard drive problem I'm having now. I have a Western Digital 160gb IDE hard drive in an external USB enclosure. I set it to CS on the jumpers, and it detected the drive, and I was able to access all files with some permission issues. Then a power outage occurred and when I connect to the drive, it runs but I can only access certain files and folders. Other folders take along while to access then I get this message: folder not accessible: Incorrect Function (can't attach the sample .jpg image).

I've tried connecting the drive to another computer and it opens the folder but it's blank?! The drive itself indicates that there's about 127gb stored. The folder i'm trying to access has about 117gb of data. Also when I try to safely remove hardware for this drive, it stalls for a long time.

I've also tried another smaller 60gb WD hard drive and it works fine when I connect to the enclosure although it's a blank drive with no data. When trying to safely remove, it works fine.

I've tried to connect this drive to my laptop, and the same thing happens. some folders I'm able to access while others give me that error message or now some of the folders open up empty but I'm certain there's data in there.

I've run checkdisk and it takes a very long time. I didn't check the 2 box options but just wanted a status report. After running, it just disappears without giving me any status.

It's strange that the drive was able to be accessed prior to the power outage and now it's not and seems really slow.

I'm running Vista Home.

Please help.

Siedog

use partition magic to check disk for error if error present then go for repair disk from safe mode or use any application like Hddregenrator.

If you installed Real Player 10, this is a likely culprit preventing XP to automatically recognize the external drive and open the Autoplay
window.You will have to uninstall Real Player and maybe do something else as
described below. After you uninstall Real Player 10, reboot your computer and then try with your camera or card reader again. If you do not want to uninstall RealPlayer, you can go around it and still get Autoplay, as given below:

• Open Real Player. Go to Tools then Preferences.
• Click on Automated Services and then Disable Message Center and Auto updates. Reboot your computer and then try with your camera or card reader again.

Since you can open the folder but cannot find data in it... and still the drive showing 117 GB of data, so I doubt that after power outage, there might have been some damage to that external hard drive due to which that folder data might have got corrupted and therefore showing blank. But the data is still there. You can try some Data Recovery tools to retrieve data.

Recover Data is particularly helpful in following cases of data loss & data disaster:

• Accidental hard disk drive format
• Inaccessible Hard Disk Drive
• Missing File/Directory
• Deleted File/Directory
• Power outages or other power-related problems.
• Hardware problems or failures, including hard drive failures, bad sectors, bad RAM, and the like.
• Failure to eject external hard drives and related storage devices before disconnecting them or powering them off.
• Corrupt or Damaged Partition Table & many more...

Thanks for the suggestions.

I don't have Real Player at all.

Is there any good free data recovery tools out there?

I'm going to try the built-in Chkdsk from Windows.

It's a Western Digital drive 160gb (WD1600JB) drive. I tried to download their diagnostic tools. I'm not sure how familar you guys are with it, but I tried to run the Quick Test, and it took a long time and kept stalling at one sector. I couldn't stop it and had to go into the task manager and end the process.

If there are any other suggestions or hints, please let me know.