I had the same problem as most people, I could hear the ding when the external drive was pluged in and I could see the device loaded in device manager..
My laptop crashed and I wanted to retrive data that was already on the disk..
Right click on My Computer and select manage from the popup menu.
Select Disk Management find your extrnal drive usually listed as the Hd name.. Right click and select import then select import on the other screen that pops up.. and bingo you now have a drive letter. without having to format..
I hope this helps..
Thanks,
David Eaton
http://www.phprocket.com