10.04 won't recognize external hard drive (FAT)

[llakais]

Hi guys,

Hopefully I'm not overlooking something obvious here, but I did a quick search and can't find any solutions pertinent to my situation.

About a week ago, I used Disk Utility to format my iomega external drive in FAT. Everything was working fine - the drive was recognized by Ubuntu and I could write to it, etc.

Just a couple days ago I hooked up the drive again, but now I can't find it anywhere. It doesn't even show up in Disk Utility or GParted.

It also doesn't appear as if the drive itself is responding at all. The LED that usually blinks when the drive is connected to the computer doesn't seem to be doing anything at all.

I haven't dropped the drive, or exposed it to extreme hot/cold temps or anything. I've tried many different USB ports. I booted Windows and it was recognized fine there.

I haven't made any significant changes to my system, other than the usual updates that I'm prompted to download and install. It's so weird because it was working fine and then all of a sudden - nothing!

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks so much for your time!

[llakais]

Okay update - I'm stupid and didn't try booting with the drive connected. That seems to work. If I boot with the drive connected, it's recognized and I can even "eject" and reconnect it with no problems. But if I boot without the drive connected it doesn't get recognized. Maybe this is just a quirk with FAT?