WD Scorpio Blue Not Detected

[ShankarB]

I have a WD Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVT external hard disk.  I have successfully used it to backup my data.  But for quite some time, the USB drive is not being detected in the regular USB ports as well as SATA posts.

When I connect the drive, my Windows 7 PC detects the drive, but it is simply shown as USB to ATA/ ATAPI Bridge.  The drive is not shown as removable storage in the explorer.

I ran the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows quick and extended tests and the drive came out with a complete PASS result.  The SMART disk info shows a tick against all the parameters.  Under the warranty column it shows 1 against the following parameters: Raw Read Error Rate, Spin Up Time, Reallocated Sector count (Yes, I need some help in understanding the SMART data).

Additioinal info: Under device managers, the drive is listed as 'WDC WD5000BEVT - 24A0RT0' (under disk drives).

I wonder what could be wrong with the drive.  I have a precious lot data in the USB drive and would want to recover them.  Pls. help.

[ShankarB]

Just keeping this thread active, so that it gets noticed by the right experts.  Thank you, 

[Wizer]

Well the good part is that the drive still shows on disk management

you can look for recovery software to retrieve the drive

after retrieving the data you can reformat the partition and test again

[ShankarB]

Thanks Wizer.  Can you suggest a recovery software?

(I'm not sure if the disk management detects the drive.  diskmgmt.msc does not show this drive.  Its just that the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows software detects the drive and is able to do the tests.  Should I attempt to write zeros?)

[Wizer]

Try Test Disk or Recuva