Hello all--my first post in the forums
Anyway, I have a Maxtor One Touch II 200GB USB external hard drive as a backup. I had problems with my system, so I reloaded everything from scratch on my main HDD. I made an
attempt to get my data from my Maxtor, but received an error:

"Location is not available. X E:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function."

Under (My) Computer, the drive can be seen, but just as "Local Disk (E", without showing its properties.

When I try to access it, the light on the unit flashes as if it is trying to get the data, and I get the above mentioned error.

Does anyone have this problem under their belt?I don't have any experience in data recovery software, or data recovery in general. I was actually considering taking it to the Geek Squad but I'm not sure how badly I will be charged for finding out if the drive is bad now, as well as any data recovery (they have 3 categories of data recovery pricing). I'm just looking for any advice anyone can give. Thank you.

Look in Disk Management and see what the properties are. Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management

Is SP2 installed? If not, install it with drive disconnected.

Have you tried removing and replugging USB connector?

If necessary, you can remove hard disk from enclosure and connect it internally bypassing USB connection.

I just checked under Disk Mgmt, and it shows it as Basic, Online, and Healthy (Primary Partition), but it's showing it as 189.92 GB RAW. I'm not sure if the "RAW" means all my data is gone? I really hope not--I had a lot of stuff on there.

I'm just not sure if the drive is in a failing state or if this is from a virus or malware. I'm not sure if I should take it to the Geek Squad and have them diagnose the problem, or just send it away for data recovery services.

Any advice?

If you are confortable with working inside your PC, connect drive to one of the internal IDE or SATA connectors and see if it is properly recognized.

You can also try connecting to another PC and see it it operates properly.

Once again, do you have SP2 installed?

I originally had the drive on an XP Pro machine. I upgraded to Vista a few months before ago. I mainly used the drive on the Vista machine, but also accessed it through my wireless LAN to XP computers. All of them have the latest updates, including XP's SP2.