Help please! Hard drive disappeared

[frolic]

Hi tom's hardware users, i am seeking help regarding my hard drive and it's disappearance today. It is a Seagate 250gb 7200rpm barracuda which i bought just under a year ago, it has disappeared from my windows explorer AND disk management, however it is still fully accessible through safe mode and it is physically running in a regular xp launch.

During regular xp boot it now takes about 5 minutes as opposed to 20 seconds or so, this is obviously related.

I'm running Windows XP MCE'05 sp2 and my main windows drive is a 72gb WD.

If my computer specs would help, please let me know.

A Premature thank you to whoever can help!
-Frolic

 

[bc4]

1st back up anything important using safe mode

2nd run a disk scan --- It will probably tell you your MBR (master Boot Record) is corrupt or missing --- you can try the repair it option but it is not a good sign that this is happening --- it is a sign that your drive is failing (or you have a virus or something)

I'd rma that sucker before the warranty runs out.

 

[frolic]

disc scan in safe mode, what exactly do i use?