My External Hard Drive is showing no files in my folders. Help!

Hello,

If there are any geniuses out there that can help me, I would be the happiest person...
I am using a brand-new Dell Inspiron One model with a Lacie-model external hard-drive, on Windows 7. All of a sudden, when I click to view my folders, they are completely empty. When clicking on the My Computer option, my hard drive is there, showing 76 GB free out of a total of 232 GB, but everything appears to be gone. When I click on those files, I receive the error stating I am afraid to re-start or unplug my hard drive. What is my next step? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I assume this is a USB HD. Try unplugging HD by clicking remove hardware safely then rebooting and then plugging back in.
Joe

Originally Posted by Joe S

I assume this is a USB HD. Try unplugging HD by clicking remove hardware safely then rebooting and then plugging back in.
Joe

This is what I ended up doing, and it worked! I was so scared I would lose information if I did that.
Thanks for replying to my post!

I have a WD My Book Pro 1T and have run into this. Occasionally it will display a message about drive being corrupt and I do the same to fix it. I suspect it is some type of timeout issue during startup and shutdows and when the drive goes into it's own sleep mode.
Joe

If the above didn't work look in Disk Management and see it the drive shows there. Also try a different port without a hub and If it's a desktop use a port on the back. If it's a powered drive plug in directly into outlet instead of a power strip.
Joe

back up your files!!