Now you see it, now you don't

[Nanny]

When I bought my new pc with XP SP2 I added a second hard drive(FAT 32) that
I'd already used for a while in my old pc, and that contains all my data,
photo's, music etc. Everything worked fine, but over the past month
something strange is happening. From one moment to the other Windows loses
sight of that second drive. Sometimes restarting (in every possible way)
helps, sometimes not. Sometimes the drive disappears when I'm saving
something to it, sometimes I can save. Does anyone have an idea about what
can be wrong ?

Nanny

 

[Patrick Keenan]

When I bought my new pc with XP SP2 I added a second hard drive(FAT 32)
that I'd already used for a while in my old pc, and that contains all my
data, photo's, music etc. Everything worked fine, but over the past month
something strange is happening. From one moment to the other Windows loses
sight of that second drive. Sometimes restarting (in every possible way)
helps, sometimes not. Sometimes the drive disappears when I'm saving
something to it, sometimes I can save. Does anyone have an idea about what
can be wrong ?

Nanny

One thing that can be wrong is that the drive is simply failing. Another
thing that can be wrong is that the cabling is loose or inadequate; check
and possibly replace the ribbon cable (with an 80-conductor) and drive power
cable.

In the BIOS verify that SMART reporting is turned ON for that drive. When
the drive disappears, restart from power-off and watch for error messages.
If any SMART error messages appear, replace any drives referenced -
promptly.

Regardless, you probably want to back up the contents of that drive to a new
drive, very soon. New drives are cheap, and very very much cheaper than
data recovery services.

HTH
-pk

 

[Nanny]

Thanks, Patrick, I'll try your suggestions !

Nanny