inconsistant secondary drive

[Teri]

I have a windows xp desktop and I added a secondary drive a few years ago so I could save all my important files there. I've never had a problem with it until recently. I did have an issue recently where I thought my primary drive was a gonner, but I was able to fix it. Now I am having an issue where when I boot up sometimes my secondary e drive shows up and sometimes it doesn't. I thought it was my ribbon, so I changed that out and it seemed to work for a while but now it's doing it again. The place where I cable into for the secondary drive is a add on, could there be something wrong with that? or is it something with the bios and the boot record from when I was trying to fix my other issue, but why would it work sometimes?? I just find it wierd that this all started right after I fixed my other issue. Please give me your thoughts on what I should try next.

[glc]

I would run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic software to test the drive for problems. It will be a free download.

[Teri]

I ran the test and it failed. Now it's telling me to download and run a dos test because, I guess, it will check each sector and I'll have the option to repair it? I'm concerned about my files because this is the drive where I keep all the stuff I care about. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm going to back it up on before I proceed. I also ran a virus scan on this drive and I found some malware and trojan horses. I just want to make sure it's clean before I back anything up.

[glc]

The drive is not repairable. Back up your files to an external drive while you still can before it fails completely. Don't bother to virus scan till you have your files backed up, then scan the backup.