Hard drives shows in My Computer, but thats it

[Epic]

Ok maybe you can help me. I have downloaded about 3 file recovery programs. My harddrive is visible in My Computer. and when I open the drive it says empty. Windows gave me a error saying I need to format it, I press that and it errors out and can't format it. Non of my data recovery software can even see the drive. Whats going on and how do I get the data off of it??
Thanks,
Brody Smith

[GDH]

Hi,

I presume you have this drive connected to PC as a secondary drive?

Please download the latest version of Recover My Files from www.recovermyfiles.com, or use this link: http://download.getdata.com/RecoverMyFiles-Setup.exe

When you run Recover My Files, select "Fast Format Recover" and click NEXT.

In the drive selection screen, do you see the "physical drive" listed? Your booting drive is "physical drive 0", so a secondary drive should be llisted as "Physical Drive 1", but you should be able to work it out by the size of the drives.

If you see the physical drive listed, then select and search this drive.

If you do not see the phycial drive listed, click on MY COMPUTER and then MANAGE and then DISK MANAGEMENT and see if Windows has the drive listed.

When you boot the PC, can you hear any noise from the drive? If you put your ear up to the drive you should hear the drive spinning? If it is silent, then it is very likely that the drive has a physical problem and needs to be sent to a hardware data recovery service (you can get a free quote here: http://www.recovermyfiles.com/data-r...y-service.php).

I hope this helps.

[scron]

I spoke with Channel Advisors the USA distribution location. I was advised the downloaded version will not work with the Key that will come the mailed CD version as the CD will have an older version on it. I tried the demo version but the link to activate it did not work on my computer as it was using up memory to hold on to the many files. I emails support at getdata with a copy of my reciept from Amazon.com/Channel Advisors sold by Target.
I was told to ask for the activation key to run the version downloaded since the one mailed will not work as it is an older version. I can't see Two Maxtor HD of same size and speed size total in Raid 0 of 248 GB. Microsoft had two telephone techs trying to get the Windows XP Pro to make the Drive letter function again but could not. Was told there as a 50/50 chance the program will even recover the data. I can't wait so long to find this out!