Hard Disk reads in Boxee but not in Windows now

[kevram]

I hope I'm in the correct forum here.
I had an external USB drive where I hold all my Movies and Music, I have had this attached to my Boxee box and all is ok. I now find that when I plug it into my PC (Vista) and my work laptop (Windows 7) it does not recognise it any more.
Within Vista it even locks up my PC.
I can still see and access all files when plugged into boxee box, can anyone advise what is happening, can I get files back off drive to my PC?
At present it looks like Im going to lose all my data, something aint right.
Is this something boxee has done?

Any help advice will be appreciated.
Thanks

[haveringcottage]

well, first things first, there's no way you'll lose your data... Boxee acts as a NAS (Network Attached Storage) when there is a USB hard drive plugged into it. So if worst came to worst, you could always transfer the files to another hard drive over your network with the drive plugged into the box.

Secondly, boxee does not write ANYTHING to attached devices. One of boxee's key principles (which it may ditch in future) is that it only READS from local storage, and never makes any changes to anything on your network. It stores all of its database data internally. It cannot add files, or delete files, or change anything to a connected drive.

you should use windows disk management to obtain some more information on the disk using your windows 7 pc (assuming the drive still locks up your Vista machine).

go to control panel (advanced view) administrative tools, computer management, disk management.

see what that says and report back.

[kevram]

Unfortunately due to security restrictions on my work laptop (Windows 7) I cannot access the disk management options.
If I were to reconnect my drive to boxee how can I then access it from my Vista laptop to copy the files back from it?

[haveringcottage]

if you look at your network tree in windows explorer, you should be able to see the storage if you browse to the boxee box...? (someone help here!)

[kevram]

I had to switch network sharing on, however network tree only shows my laptopn, my work laptop, my router and my samsung TV, no boxee

[kevram]

HaveringCottage,
Thanks for your suggestions here.

After a bit of digging around I have managed to get my Boxee onto the network and I'm copying files back to my laptop.

I suspect the drive may be screwed in some way that windows cannot load it when linux can. Once complete I'll see if I can somehow reformat it, failing that then it may be for the bin. I'm wondering if at some point I remouved the drive wuthout unattaching it from laptop or boxee and it has caused a problem perhaps.