Windows Exploer not functioning

[Guest]

I am running Vista Home Premium. I've been away for 3 weeks. When I came back
yesrterday I couldn't open up my Maxtor 80GB external drive. The shortcut to
this was on my desktop and on clicking the cursor just hangs. I open up Task
Manager and select 'End' and another window comes up with 3 options1) to
check online for solution and restart. (2) Close Program and (3) Wait for
response. None of them produce the right result. On the task manager
'explorer.exe' is shown in the processes. Other than reloading Vista Premium
I can't see how I can get things moving again. Anyone out there who can help.

 

[Bill Yanaire]

Was the computer on all this time? Shut everything down, power up the
external drive first, then start Vista. It should come back.
If you powered up the computer after returning and the drive still doesn't
show up, remove the USB cable from the machine. Reinsert the cable. This
should show the drive. If that doesn't work, go to the control panel,
devices, highlight the USB entries, then delete them. Reboot your PC. The
USB entries will get rebuilt.

 

[Guest]

Sorry, no it was powered down before I left for Canada. I first became aware
of the Windows Explorer not working was when I tried using a short cut to an
Excel worksheet which had been on Local Disc 'J' which is the ID of my
external hard disc. The cursor just froze. I have tried removing USB and
rebooting without success.

 

[Bill Yanaire]

Can you bring up Windows Explorer without using the shortcut? How about
opening "My Computer" and looking for the drive as an icon? Does it show
up? Delete the existing shortcut that you have on the desktop.