[LTozer]

Hello

For a few weeks I haven't been able to access my portable hard drive - please help!

It is made by CBA Digital and has 100gb of space. Currently approximately a third of the space is being used. It has two USB connectors which I connect to my laptop. There appears to be an additional power port to plug into a mains socket but the lead/plug was not included with the packaged portable hard drive and I assumed this would only be required once I was closer to filling it up, or to increase its performance.

What happens when I try to connect:

The laptop recognises the presence of my portable hard drive, but it is unable to load / access it. Basically the address bar starts to load, in green, but it never completes. Eventually is usually says 'not responding' and often the other open programs crash. As soon as I remove the portable hard drive everything goes back to normal. I have tried accessing it with no programs open and when I first turn on my laptop to no avail. I have also tried accessing it on someone else's laptop and exactly the same thing happens.

Possible causes:

1. Last month I transferred some music files from my sisters old MAC onto it. I was able to re-connect the hard drive to my laptop and access the files. I believe it stopped working the next time I tried to access my files on the portable hard drive. Could the MAC vs Vista Laptop have caused the problem?

2. Do I need to buy a power lead to access it, even though I'm only using a third of the space?

Ruling out:

1. Virus - this seems unlikely as I purchased the professional version of Avast some time ago and I scan both my laptop and hard drive reguarly. My sister's MAC does not have virus protection but it is not connected to the internet, and besides, my Avast protection would have identified any viruses when I accessed it after collecting some of my sister's music files.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks!