Need help, external HDD not connecting

My 200Gb external hard disk is not working. I connect it, windows gives me the "bing" to tell me somethings been connected and its even in device manager. But it doesn't come up in my computer. I really need help because there is alot of family photo's on this thing that I would hate to lose. Some can probably be found in the computer, it's merely a backup of everything but I had an account deleted with about 2 hundred and the ones on the drive are the only copy's.

I've tried updating it's drivers, what now?

A couple of things might be helpful here - what type of HD is it and how is it connected to the network/pc? I had simular issues with a Buffalo external connected to my network. In the end all I did was uninstall the support software and reinstall it.

Go to disk management and see if it has a drive letter assigned to it.
Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management
Right click the drive, and select change drive letters and paths.

well I tried disk management, it comes up, says how big it is but says its "Not Initialized".

Heres a screenie

It says "unallocated". That normally implies it is not a partition. Not what you want to see.

When did it last work properly and what may might you have done since that date that might have affected that drive?

the last time it worked properly was about 2 months ago when I backed up some pictures, now I have some I want to but it won't let me use it.

actually now I just realized I updated windows about that time..

There is a thread you might want to checkout and see if it applies to you :

https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/1814-external-usb-hard-drive-problems.html

regarding problems with USB externals. Apparently the problems exists with some nVidia chipsets. There is a solution (a hotfix from MS) in the 3rd or 4th page.

At a guess you need to download and install the intel matrix storage manager - if AHCI is enabled in the bios w7 will install the driver during installation of W7, but for correct functionality you need to install the matrix driver/software. Your board has a Intel® G31 Express Chipset w/Integrated Graphics which supports the matrix storage manager.

You will find it at the intel site - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx
Select chipsets - chipset software - intel(R) matrix storage manager - Select Operating System - select Windows 7 (64bit OR 32 bit) - select drivers - select intel(R) matrix storage manager 8.9.0.1023 - download and install.
(make sure you don't download the floppy configuration utility by mistake) - it will show up if you select utilities.

@whest

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