.. starting (I think) with my installing a printer, possibly some sort of driver issue?
As the drive was fine prior to this, afaik.
Series of events goes: plugged in printer to laptop, windows starts detecting & installing drivers etc: Problem with printer meant I went to put in its printer software disc, (which I probably should have to begin with but I have another exact same model I already use with this laptop so I hazily assumed windows was fishing the relevant drivers out of its cupboards ), find drive is not working/not appearing in My Computer. Tried system restore, also not working even in Safe Mode - unknown error. However drive reappeared briefly, then failed to read a test disk, before disappearing again. Before I make matters any worse - any suggestions for next course.. thanks.