Maxtor one touch III problems

[nongeeknick]

I have a maxtor one touch III. One day it was working fine now all of a sudden it takes a long time for my computer to recognise it and when it finally does insists that I format, which is out of the question because I have some very important info on it. I'm not too sure if I should just take it as is to get a data recovery expert to sort out or give it a crack and pull out the HDD and put it in another caddie...any suggestions.

 

[Emerald]

if you take it out you should be able to connect it to your computers MOBO directly and test it

 

[Cerealkiller45_86]

I had same problem with my maxtor..ended up taking the hd out and buying an ext hd case. Several noted issues with the maxtor 1 touch 3.