Well, after a reformat, and a change in USB cable (I borrowed my HP all in one printer USB Cable), I still get the same problem. I suspect something became corrupt with the drive when I had to do a hard shut down using "OFF" on my laptop, during a defrag of that external drive. I suspect that because it showed as "healthy" when I manged to view it in Computer Management, that the only way to get it functioning again is to format it and lose all my data on it :( A friend of mine is going to login to my system via remote assistance (if I can get it to work), and look at my BIOS or something. I"m so frustrated I don't know whether to laugh or cry over it. She tells me to do something, or look for something or try something... and I'm totally lost by what she's talking about. I feel so stupid :( Also... she tried looking for updated drivers for the hard drive.. but because it's a Maxtor nternal drive with something toshiba (she thinks)... she can't find any. The good news is that I wrote to Maxtor (twice), and begged them to help me, even if it wasn't an original external drive. They reviewed my situation and told me that I should call their 800 tech number. I'll do that tomorrow if I can't get anything fixed tonight. If they can't help me, then I will start reinstalling from scratch. I'm now totally bummed out about external drives, and doubt I'll ever try using another one. What a pain in the butt.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi