Hard Drive - visible but not there

hi there,
This is an ongoing problem I've had for some time. I am using an 80 gig Seagate HD as my C: Drive and a 40 gig HD to store music on. Although both are very old, theyve generally worked ok - up until a few months ago when I had a power failure. The 40 gig is full of my music but it isn't registering when I go into 'My Computer' (or anywhere else for that matter).
The odd thing is, when I go into Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager, I click on 'Disk Drives' and there it is [ST340823A] (image enclosed). How can this be?
Clearly my machine is detecting the HD is there yet it isn't showing up in My Computer :confused.
I have clicked on 'uninstall driver' then on 'scan for hardware changes' and sure enough, it pops up again but still not in My Computer. This is puzzling me.
Also, when I click on the driver properties then click on Volumes / Populate, it says '0' volumes, 'unreadable' (image enclosed). I am baffled as the drive is (or was) actually full with my music but the main thing puzzling me is the fact that the HD is registering yet I don't know where it is.
Can anyone help?
Many thanks Skinno.

 

Never run into this problem, so this may not help,but worth checking.
Open case while powered off and check the power plugin on your drive. May have shifted some and needs to be reseated.
From symptoms shown, data connector appears OK.

 

Control Panel
Admin Tools
Computer Management
Disc Management (in left hand column)

Does the drive show up here ?

If so, what's it's status ?

I've had similar problems with multiple hard drives in one of my computers, possibly caused by a bad connection. Once, I had to reactivate one of the drives. Right click the bit where it says 'Disc 1' or Disc 2'.
Depending on the status of the disc, you may have to : -

Import Foreign Discs
or
Reactivate Disc
or
Convert to Dynamic Disc.

I can't remember which option I used but it got the computer to recognise the drive again.

 

When you right click on the drive and click properties, what does the drive say as to how big it is, what is capacity is.....What does that little pie graph look like??? This kind of sounds bad but may not be....check the drive's connection to everything. It is possible that your power failure damaged something......try removing the drive and then restarting your comp then putting it back it. If you can, try the drive in another machine.

 

Hi guys
Thanks for the replies. I checked 'disk management' and the HD doesnt show up - at all (see image) yet it is still showing in device manager. I have uninstalled it again a couple of times and reinstalled it. Each time I do this, I just get the usual pop up box (bottom right of pc screen) informing me that new hardware has been found and is ready to use. Still I cant locate it.
In response to rmyere - I cant right click on the drive to see the capacity or what it looks like as it is not there to click on, it is invisible (as mentioned in my last post) LOL.
It has to be said that this PC is about 9 years old now and is on its last legs so to speak but until I can afford a new one, I'm afraid it's all I have.
I did notice when booting Windows up last time (which incidentally takes about 20 mins each time - yes it's dying lol), that it displayed both hard drives as being present but it also said:
"Primary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed".
Now I haven't a clue what this is and wouldn't know what it looks like let alone check it out but it's still allowing me to log onto Windows and type this message. All the HD connections seem to be firmly in place so I am totally at a loss to what is wrong. :confused
Skinno