My Computer Randomly Stopped Recognizing My External Hard Drive, HELP!

I have an external hard drive, it’s a 160 GB Simpletech Fabrik: http://www.simpletech.com/content/signature-mini-blueberry-160-gb and my computer is a Compaq Presario with the 2002 package of Windows XP Professional.

At first, I had it plugged in with my PS3 usb cord in the front, because I lost the Y cord, but later, I used a regular cord and had it plugged in one of the rear ports. My computer is rather old, so none of them have 2.0 ports, if that’s remotely important…

I bought this about a year and a half ago, and it’s been working like a charm! But then, like a month ago, I downloaded a whole bunch of music, which automatically saves to my computer. So when I go to save the music to my external hard drive, the folder I had open to it was suddenly empty, and my computer stopped recognizing it! So I try unplugging it, replugging it, restarting, rebooting, everything I could think of, and nothing.

The next day I call the company, and they told me it just needs more power, and I need the original Y usb cord. They send me the cord, and by mistake, another one. I try plugging the drive in with either cords, and still nothing. I call the company back, and the tech instructed me to plug the cord in by itself first into both rear ports and then plug the cord into the drive. And bam! It works!

But then, like 2 hours later, my computer goes back to not recognizing it.

The drive has 2 lights on it, one red, one blue, red means it’s on, and blue means it’s reading and writing. Only the red light comes on. And out of the 160 gigs of available space, I think I have about 40 gigs left of space.

Someone please give me some suggestions! If in fact that my drive can’t be saved, what are my options? Thanks in advance!