I've had this problem for a while now and so FAR I've not been able to solve it. Basically I have a Samsung SP0411N hard drive and I used to be able to ACCESS it for backing up files. It's an internal EIDE HD so I would connect it as a slave every time I wanted to back up files as I never had an external HD then. One day I just couldn't access the files anymore. Although looking at it in explorer it indicated, and still does, that there are files on it which make up 25 of the 40 Gig it can store, I can't seem to access it. I've tried several hard drive recovery applications but none of them have been that good. Can any one recommend a good hard drive recovery application I could use so I can mend it. The drive works but I just can't view the files I know are there. Would I have to add a partition or something perhaps? Ideally I'm looking to repair the HD and assuming it works physically then it must be repairable? As far as I can remember it was never used as primary Hard drive so it doesn't have an OS on it. Help!A little confused here...

Your subject states the files are not visible on the hard drive, but you state in your post, the files can be seen but are not ACCESSIBLE. Is this the case?

Has this drive always been in the computer you are referring to? Can you access any of the files at all? Have there been any changes to the "Users" permissions on this computer? Are any of the files on it private?

Try this:

1. Boot into Safe Mode.
2. In WINDOWS Explorer for that particular drive go to \Documents and Settings\ and right click on the username folder.
3. Check the Security for the folders for that particular user and make sure the files and folders are not set as private.

See if this works, at all, and post back with your results...