Hi,
It sounds like something may be screwed up with your PC correctly recognizing the drive. Right click on "My Computer" and select "Manage > Disk Management". In the bottom section of the screen, does it show up as "Disk 1"? What are the properties of this drive?
Download and try Recover My Files from
Data Recovery Software to Undelete Files; Disk recovery; Recover Deleted Files. Run a Complete Format Recover on the physical drive for the default selected file types. What results does this search give you?