BACKGROUND - We had a home computer which picked up a bug of some sort, got it fixed through Hijack This but... subsequently found Trojan on a memory stick that had been used on that PC and laptops, this was also sorted.

ISSUES - I used the home PC (XP) and laptop (Vista) for managing my photos, after a short spell I could no longer read from my Pentax DSLR onto the laptop, stopped using the home PC and eventually got rid of it.

The Pentax broke, I bought a Canon - after a short while I could no longer read directly from the camera onto the laptop. The Canon was never attached to the home PC (now gone).

I have a new memory stick; I can read from it but everytime I plug it in to the laptop I get a message saying I should SCAN and fix errors, NONE are ever found.

I bought a Seagate external HARD drive and transfered all the useful stuff off my Vista laptop onto it, then attached it to my new 7 laptop - after a few days my laptop could no longer find the Seagate.

Have I been unlucky or is something odd whistling up my USBs every time I plug them in?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I have an Seagate external hard drive for 3 YEAR's and have no problem's, but it's alway's off until i need or update file's to it.The message you get about scanning and fixing errors is normal - ignore it. As for the external drive, try it on another computer to make sure it's still good. If it is, open disk management on the computer in question and tell us if you see the drive there.