Nargh! External drive wont show in windows, and causes all programs to pause!?what?

[Swiss Tony]

I've got a caddy with a 160gb IDE>USB drive in, was working fine very new. but now when i connect to laptop make the windows device connected noise, but does not show under disk management. it also prevents any programs eg IE winamp etc from starting until it is disconnected! also when you pull out the usb cable - the drive apears in disc management for a fraction of a second before going away. i havent dropped, slapped or smaked the drive and it sounds normal on power up. whats the crack here?! i've a lot of data i need on it .
please help
ST

 

[Swiss Tony]

fixed it, get this http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk and bookmark it! it rocks

 

[Swiss Tony]

try as the software scans the drives plugging it in at the right time, ie load then usb plug in.