Folks, I've got a WD Elements 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive that shows up fine in Vista and appears to be reading without problem. However, for some reason the volume has disappeared from the drive and my folders are no longer visible.

I only heard this cluck for about 15 seconds a few days ago, and almost immediately thereafter the contents went missing. Properties shows that I have used 251GB, but the disc appears to have no folders.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
AB

Likely bad blocks in the beginning of user area. Image the disk and reconstruct partition data or try to get data from partition. If you have problems during the process, need a pro help. P.s. Get rid of that disk.

Well that's a start. Appreciate your pointing me in the right direction. However I'm not competent to do more than the imaging without a bit more detailed guidance. Any chance you might be willing to elaborate amigo?

Quickest and safest way if you're not familiar to these things is to find a pro near you maybe from this forum. Otherwise you'll need at least same storage space, a tool either Sw or Hw , and knowing what to do...

Someone else gave me the idea to do a search for files on the drive. Lo-and-behold the *.* search returned all the files. I've opened a few to make sure that they're still accessible, and all appears to be fine. Just not appearing in the explorer with the file structure. Can I re-create this somehow?

Not directly (I don't want to go too deeply technical but it's completely UNSAFE to perform FS fixes on a failing drive or unknown state drive) BUT you can copy them (if you can) on another WORKING DRIVE (do it before it's too late). THEN have your drive serviced / replaced. Concentrate on the most relevant files (unique and not replaceable or downloadable).