Webuser Forums: External Hard Drive data there but not accessible

hello, Please can someone help? I have an external usb2 hard drive, 200Gb. I have saved about 12 Gb of stuff on it, including alot of family photos. The problem I have is, the drive shows up on my computer, but when i open it it shows nothing. I know the files are there still, because when i look in the properties it shows 12Gb of used space. I have connected the drive to my new laptop & still have the same problem. I can save data to the drive & it shows up, but all my old stuff is "invisible". Also, the name of the drive has changed, it used to be J: Removeable, but now it is 92M3 & a box symbol, similar to what you get when reading something in notepad, if you follow me??!!?? I have tried disk cleanup, device check, reinstalling the driver, another usb cable, defragging. could it be that the data stored before the name of the disk changed is the key to finding it? What I mean is, does my pc only recognise it as, J:/photos & because the name is changed it doesn't see the old data? I could just format the disk, or carry on using it to store stuff, as it will still hold info, but I would really like to recover some of the pictures, if possible. Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

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