>You psychic????... it lasted for the root directory level. As soon as I clicked a plus-sign to get deeper...#$@!@#%^%$#@
>
>I think I'lll format the sucker. But not really expecting it to work.
>
>
>>>I seem to have the drive back!!!
>>>
>>>Under Safe Mode I saw that the drive was set up to allow 'fast indexing'. I removed that.
>>>
>>>When I re-booted in regular mode I was able to access the whole E: drive using Explorer. I hope it lasts < s >
>>
>>Now there may be any part of the computer made of wood, but look around yourself, you should be able to find something to knock on.

I think Thomas has the right idea. What I'd do:

- Every drive maker has a freely downloadable diagnostic program. I'd run that for your drive and see what it finds.

- New drives are dirt cheap: 500GB ~C$125. What's your time worth?

- BTW if you do get a new drive, one thing you could do would be to clone the old to the new. I use NTFSClone on a Knoppix LiveCD for this. On one occasion it consistently failed to complete the clone at the same % complete; this was the first indication I had that something was going wrong with the source drive. I later ran some intense diagnostics on it and confirmed it was on its way out.

You could also consider a RAID 1 arrangement for data you consider to have any significant value.