External Harddrive Problems

[gothXrockXchick]

I'm new here.
* HI everyone!* 
For the last few days I've been having major trouble with my external harddrive.
Before I got my internal harddrive upgraded to 550gb and 2.2 GB of ram, my computer was running on NO ram, and 1.2 gigs. So, as you can imagine.. it was nearly inoperable.
Because I didn't know the total state of my PC, I grabbed my external and moved everything I could onto it.
The last time I used it was reeaaallly early Sunday morning, before I even considered taking my PC in, and I loaded all of my iTunes information onto it, just so I could have it for when something happened to my PC.
I tried reopenning my EHD and.. it wouldn't open.
So I thought "Okay, clearly there's absolutely NO MORE space on my computer to open it." And, that's when I took it in.
I got my computer back later that day and didn't even think about seeing if my EHD would open. Just a few moments ago, I tried connecting the EHD to my PC and as before, I didn't open..
My computer started to read it but then I got a notification at the lower right hand side of the task bar saying "An error occurred while installing your new hardware."
So I thought, "sh*t!"
I know that sometimes USB ports can go bad, so I switched up where I plugged in the EHD, and it still didn't work.

So now, I'm stuck.
My EHD can't be read anndd... I don't know what to do.
I've googled for similar problems and everyone has had different answers like, hooking it up and searching for it through Disk Management and so forth, and I've heard of something called TWEAKUI?

I'm in serious need of help
Any tips, tricks?
Need more info?
I can give you AALLLL the info you'll need :S

[BC_Programmer]

my computer was running on NO ram

A computer cannot run on "no ram", period. So I assume you must mean disk space?


anybody suggesting you use TweakUI is misguiding you at this point.

First, unplug it, reboot, and plug it in again, and see if it's recognized. If not, try plugging it into another PC, and see if it works there. (doesn't matter where the other PC is, could be a friends or relatives)

[gothXrockXchick]

A computer cannot run on "no ram", period. So I assume you must mean disk space?


anybody suggesting you use TweakUI is misguiding you at this point.

First, unplug it, reboot, and plug it in again, and see if it's recognized. If not, try plugging it into another PC, and see if it works there. (doesn't matter where the other PC is, could be a friends or relatives)

Yeah, that's what I meant.
I've tried unplugging the external, switching USB ports, rebooting, rebooting the external itself. But I haven't tried using it on another PC yet. Which, would most likely be ideal to do so ASAP at this point.

[Hawkeye]

does the computer even acknowledge that the external HDD is plugged in? Is it connected directly to the computer or is it plugged into a USB hub? I i is plugged into a hub, plug it directly into the computer. If that fails, try it on a friends computer, making sure that the second computer has up to date anti-virus software installed on it.