since the drive utilities show the drive is OK, i would have to suspect that something is erasing the data on the drive. how thorough have your virus scans been and do you use a firewall on your Internet connection?
Herb....
I just encountered a problem with my WD2000 200GB HD. I have it configured on a Promise UltraATA controller as the primary slave, though the problem persisted when I moved it to be the primary slave on the MB. So I don't think it could be related to placement.
I installed the drive, which is a replacement for another WD2000 recently returned to WD. All installed OK and I began moving data. (I collect a lot of concert recordings which eat up huge quantities of space.) After a couple of days, when I powered up the computer showed the drive, but gave the message that the drive was not formatted, yet I know it was and that it had 60 GB of data on it the night before. -- The same problem existed with the drive I sent back and I assumed it was a defective HDD. WD test program shows drive is OK.
I have checked the jumpers, reinstalled it w/o reformatting, but the problem persists.
The drive is formatted as NTFS, if that makes a difference in things. I run WinXP home edition, Intel 2.4 GHz CPU w/ 1Gig of RAM. On the motherboard I have a Maxtor 160 GB as boot drive, and a WD2000 which works fine as the slave. I have a DVD+/- RW and CDRW as secondary master and slave.
The problem is with a drive I have hooked to the Ultra ATA IDE controller. To finish off the hard drives, I have a WD2500 250 GB as primary master and the problem drive as primary slave on the controller.
I'm not a total tech idiot, my 13 y.o. and I are about to build a own new system for him. But it does seem that I get myself into trouble when I think I know more than I do. And this seems to be the case this time.
I know you are probably shaking your head at the space, but I have been using the drives to store full lossless versions, ratther than mp3 versions, of shows, which is greatly preferred among traders of concerts.
The problem does not go away when I remove some of the drives to reduce the numbers. Nor does it make a difference where I configure the drive on the card or the motherboard.
The WD Data Lifeguard utilities show no problem with the drive. But the same thing occurred with the earlier drive. Tested fine but repeatedly lost data. This earlier drive made a lot of noise, so I figured the drive was defective when the data losses occurred.
Both drives have been the bottom of my four drives, near the bottom of the tower case. None of the other drives have had a problem.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks.
Bob

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic