XP won't reconize my external

[Unregistered]

The other day I had my external drive plugged into a power strip and lost power in my house. Afterwards my Maxtor One Touch external just blinks and spins. There is no odd noises and it wasn't dropped so nothing should be broken physically. I don't really care about the files on it, I just need it to get it working so that I can use it again. Any ideas on how I can get XP to read it again?

[jharriso]

Try right clicking on My Computer and clicking 'Manage'. under Storage, go to Disk Management. Does the drive show up in there? If you unplug the driver from the machine, then plug it back in, does it see it?

If you can't get it to recognize on your machine, try it on a friend's computer, both PC and Mac. Hopefully, one of these suggestions will get you back on the road, but it's possible that something got fried.

Also, is your power strip just a power strip? Or is it actually a surge protector? If it is just a power strip, it's entirely possible that there may have been some damage to the drive because of power fluctuations.

[dcv]

Josh's suggestion is your best bet - if it shows up under "Disk Management" on Windows (or "Utilities > Disk Utility" in Mac OS X) you'll be able to reformat it. If not, then you'll have to replace it.

Either way, you might want to invest in a cheap UPS, or Uninterruptible Power Supply. Depending on the amount of power draw, a UPS can keep powering devices for a few minutes if power goes out, and it'll also do the job of a surge protector to take care of power fluctuations. Mine cost $40 and can power my tower, LCD monitor, and external hard drive for roughly five minutes (it also plugs into a USB port and will automatically shut down my tower when its battery level drops too low and power isn't coming back on).