External Hard drive crashing computer

[morpety]

I started up my external hard drive, and there was a power failure whilst it was loading onto my computer.
Ever since that has happened, everytime i connect this external hard drive, it eventually, not immediately, crashes my computer.
Another symptom of this problem, is that when i open my computer, or control panel, or some similar window, it takes a minute to load onto the screen.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance

[Saviour]

System specs, please...

[Mastamind]

reformat the external drive

[morpety]

The Computer spec is:-
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.2GHz,
2 GB RAM
Running on Microsoft Windows XP
Service pack2

External Hard drive.
Freecom 250Gig  

[GX1_Man]

I've never heard of a Freecom.

Can you test it on another machine? I agree that a diagnostic from the manufacturer would be a good thing to do, if available, and the drive can get up and running. If it passes, a format would be the next step.

[Calum]

I've never heard of a Freecom.

I have a Freecom external 250Gb HDD.
I've had no trouble with it though.
@ morpety - have you tried Freecom's tech support?  Maybe it's a known issue and there's a quick fix (not rubbishing anyone's advice here, just saying Freecom might know exactly what the problem is).

[morpety]

I will send technical support an email, if they can be botherd to answer.
In the meantime, further information on this problem is:-

I have tried the external hard drive on my computer at work and it functions perfectly.
I took out the hard drive from its case and connected it to my computer with a usb connector and got the same crash.
I reinstalled windows on my computer hard drive and found the same problem afterwards.

I can only come to the conclusion now that it has either changed the bios or something physical on the computer.

[patio]

Since you have removed it from it's caddy try hooking it up as a slave on IDE 1...

Try another USB device as well in the same slot ...does it work ? ?

[morpety]

I connected another hard drive via usb/ide connector and it crashed.
This hard drive worked before with this type of connection.
Could it be a driver issue?

My tower is too small to have a slave hard drive connected.

[GX1_Man]

A driver is not the problem.

[patio]

Since you have removed it from it's caddy try hooking it up as a slave on IDE 1...

Try another USB device as well in the same slot ...does it work ? ?

Did you try this ? ?

[morpety]

I havent hooked this drive as a slave because the computer is one of these mini towers and theres no space for an extra drive in there.........if its possible to do that remotely i havent a clue how to do that.

I have tried other hardware in the usb port and they work fine.

The spec of the external hard drive is...........a Deskstar 250 gig ATA/IDE

[mcf747]

have you been able to get any diagnostic from the manufacture and/ or have you tried reformating it

[morpety]

The system crashes before i get access to the drive

[patio]

I connected another hard drive via usb/ide connector and it crashed.

I suspect that USB port got fried with the hit you took.