How do I get OS to recognize exernal drive contents?

[dneunabe]

I just moved an old master hard drive out of my computer and into an external case. Everything seems to be in order, except that My Computer doesn't show any of my old files, with the exception of a few windows folders, most of which are empty. The drive (an 80Gb IDE drive, Seagate) seems to write files just fine. Anybody have any idea how to get my old files back? [I tried to upload a screen shot of the files, but file is too big for your site]
Thanks for your help

 

[dneunabe]

Forgot...

I use Windows XP Professional, SP2

 

[Nodsu]

Is the old drive supposed to be OK? You should test it with proper diagnostic utilities (you have the the drive out of the enclosure) and if the hardware checks out fine, run a filesystem test (chkdsk).

Writing anything to that drive is not a good idea. Every byte written is some data overwritten and lost forever.