WinXP can't see 2nd HD after Scan

[Thrawn05]

Help!  After I did my first scan using Avast windows XP doesn't see my Second HD.

I walked away from the scan since i knew it was gonna take awhile, and I come back after an hour the system rebooted.  I tried to restart again and the BIOS startup took FOREVER trying to find all my drives (C and D HDs, E DVD-ROM and F CD-RW).

My system is a:
PIII 550Mhz
256 100Mhz SDRAM
Windows XP Pro
C: 20GB
D: 15 GB  (My Pagefile is located here, and the system is SLOW now).
E: DVD-ROM
F: CD-RW
G: External USB Zip 250 Drive

THe system is about 4 years old and was upgraded (clean) from Windows 98 SE.  I have never had any problems with my system before (not even a BSoD).

Please if you need more info please ask.

EDIT Update:
I do have a second computer and a shared folder on my second drived cannot be accessed by my second computer.

[Vlk]

1. Send me the newest file in the \windows\minidump folder
2. do a disk check of all hard discs, including surface scan.

I don't see any other reason for this to happen besides a hardware problem.

Thanks
Vlk

[Thrawn05]

I unfortunatly don't seem to have a minidump folder.

I was also planing on doing a surface scan of all my disks on both my computers (I do it every first of the month).

What struck me was that avast (v4 I believe) rebooted the computer.  I recently replaced the C drive HD because it failed, but this 2nd drive is only a year old.  Both I believe are Wester-Digital.

I will perform a surface scan on the C drive (since I can't get it to see the 2nd drive) once everything is cleared on the avast end (since it was the only program that I had running at the time).  I want to elemlinat any and all software (or even BIOS) issues before I call up the local computer store for a possible replacement.

[.: Mac :.]

when was the last time you updated your BIOS? if it doesnot see the 2nd HDD then mabye you should update it.

[Thrawn05]

I will make a note that Avast has been having problems scanning both my computers and tending to make them act funny after a scan.  Such as after rebooting, the system try icons all (or mostly) disapear.  Incuding ones like the sound volume and m LAN connection.

[Thrawn05]

when was the last time you updated your BIOS? if it doesnot see the 2nd HDD then mabye you should update it.

There is no update.  Sorry.   And even if there was, I would be not be fast to do so considering this was a Win98SE system.

[Vlk]

There is no minidump folder? Strange...

avast did not reboot the PC. It most likely had a BSOD ('blue screen of death') and WinXP is is set up to reboot immediately by default...

You can check Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery Settings -> System Failure group and see the minidump path... (%SYSTEMROOT% is replaced by the actual path to the Windows folder)

Vlk

[.: Mac :.]

There is no update.  Sorry.  And even if there was, I would be not be fast to do so considering this was a Win98SE system.

 Ok. That was just my 2 cents