Hey all you computer hardware installing crackers...

[Mandres]

Mak, in my experience if Windows does not automatically assign a letter then the drive is bricked.  It means that the master boot table (or whatever it's called) is corrupt or there is damage to the controller.  Depending on what exactly is wrong you may be able to use a low-level utility from the manufacturer to format it (and lose all your data) or image the drive but I've never had any luck doing so. 

I also had an external drive fail recently on my work machine but was able to remove it from the enclosure and hook it up internally with no problems, data intact. 

[yamahonkawazuki]

Mak, in my experience if Windows does not automatically assign a letter then the drive is bricked.  It means that the master boot table (or whatever it's called) is corrupt or there is damage to the controller.  Depending on what exactly is wrong you may be able to use a low-level utility from the manufacturer to format it (and lose all your data) or image the drive but I've never had any luck doing so. 

I also had an external drive fail recently on my work machine but was able to remove it from the enclosure and hook it up internally with no problems, data intact. 

What he said ↑↑↑

[natedawg120]

Mak, in my experience if Windows does not automatically assign a letter then the drive is bricked.  It means that the master boot table (or whatever it's called) is corrupt or there is damage to the controller.  Depending on what exactly is wrong you may be able to use a low-level utility from the manufacturer to format it (and lose all your data) or image the drive but I've never had any luck doing so. 

I also had an external drive fail recently on my work machine but was able to remove it from the enclosure and hook it up internally with no problems, data intact. 

What he said ↑↑↑

+1

[scottpA_GS]

You can try the diagnostic and setup tools from Western Digital, see if they can resurrect the drive.  Try a low-level format (writes all zeros to the drive, or is it all ones?). 

Go here:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=6&lang=en

...download the tools for your drive (Data Lifeguard Tools and/or Diagnostics).  There are Windows versions you can try, but what usually works the best is the DOS version that runs from a floppy.  Just be careful not to format your good drive.  Maybe you can disconnect the "good" drive, leave the "bad" drive connected, boot from the Data Lifeguard Tools floppy (instructions on how to make the floppy are on the website), and run the low level format.  The tool can also help you prepare it to be used in a Windows XP system.

BassCliff

+ 1 to this...