Question : Problem: All of a sudden, external drive causes "USB Power Surge" and "Device Not Recognized" errors

On my PC, my mouse and printer use the USB ports on the back of the CPU, and the two ports on the front of the CPU usually hold my Wacom table and my external hard drive.  Every now and then I will unplug one of the two front plugs to plug in a microphone or digital camera transfer device.

For the first time today, I couldn't access my external drive.  It is usually recognized as drive K:, but today the system wasn't recognizing it (it wasn't showing up in the list when I go to My Computer).  When I unplugged and plugged the USB back in, I got the a power surge message ("Pwer Surge On Hub Port. One of the USB device has exceeded the power limits...")  I had never seen this error before.

I have tried various troubleshooting, like clicking the Reset button in the error message, unplugging all USB cords and disconnecting them from the power source, restarting, etc.

I've tried to put the USB cord for the external drive in all the different USB outlets and it still isn't recognized.  Sometimes I get the power surge error message, sometimes a "USB device not recognized" error, and sometimes no error message - but in all cases, it isn't recognized.

I've put the Wacom tablet in several different outlets, and it continues to work all the time.

So - I'm wondering if the external drive is drawing too much power, and so will a USB Powered Hub fix that?  (It's strange - I haven't saved anything additional to the external drive recently, or even used it at all in at least a week).

Or could it be a problem with the drive itself?  It's a Western Digital.  The power light comes on and off when I turn the power button.  I've used this drive, in conjunction with the other products on the system (Wacom, printer, etc) for a couple of years and never had a problem before today.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Answer : Problem: All of a sudden, external drive causes "USB Power Surge" and "Device Not Recognized" errors

Indeed. It sounds more like the usb adapter (case). It doesn't mean your data is lost, but it can mean your enclosure is faulty. As said by nobus, The data might be saved by actually taking the disk out of the case and connecting it to a computer either by usb adapter, or internally.