has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer

I have received this error message too. I can't find any windows 7 DVD that my computer came with. It is not under warranty any more but that is the least of my concerns. I had saved everything I was working on on that computer and I would do anything to save those files because I cannot ever get them back otherwise. I'm such an idiot for not backing up my files, but does anyone know how to get those files back?

It sounds like a good possibility that your hard drive has failed. There are two ways very different ways a hard drive can fail. One is a mechanical failure of the moving parts, usually the seek arm gets jammed and won't move (common when dropped). The other is when the information gets corrupted, usually bad sectors where info are stored loose their magnetism and when this happens in very important places like the file table then the references to the beginning of the files are lost.

There are programs out there that can recover data in the second case. None of them free that I know of but cheaper than taking it to a computer shop to have it done. But you need to be on a working computer to run the software and you have to have the damaged drive hooked up. If you have another computer which you can attach it to as a secondary hard drive or if you can plug it into the other computer with an external dock or HD case ...

... then you can try recovery software.

I have used an older version of the recovery product from Stellar Phoenix that saved me years ago. What is nice about their software is that it will show you what it can recover so you know before you buy whether it will be worth it to you.

I'm afraid nothing is guaranteed but may well be worth a bit of work to connect the HD to another computer and then see if the software can find your files it may be worth it to buy the software to extract them.

....

If it is the first case where your hard drive seek arm is jammed then you need to free the arm. One method that works sometimes is if you put the HD in a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer for an hour. The metal contracting in the cold is sometimes enough to dislodge it and the seek arm goes back into position. (I've also gone more hardcore and ground off the screws holding the cover plate and physically pushed the arm back), Realize this is usually a one-time shot. Hook it back up and if you can read the drive then export the data immediately and then replace the drive with a new one.