On Jan. 20, I posted that I fully expect my HDDs to fail at any time.
Today, Jan. 22, Windows advised me that, due to corruption, I must format external HDD letter A.
As many times as I hit Cancel the message reappeared.
What that meant was that ALL my recent data resided on A's backup, letter B.
Scary!
Multiple restarts accomplished nothing.
As usual when I have a tough decision to make, I decided to "sleep on it" (like Meat Loaf).
So I shut the machine down, and we both took a nap.
Upon awakening, I pushed the power button and then began leafing through an unread magazine, while it was booting.
Next, I double-clicked Computer and immediately noted that matters had worsened: the HDD no longer appeared, which meant I couldn't format it even if I decided to.
So I once again shut down completely.
Lo and bedhold! upon booting from the second complete shutdown the drive reappeared -- and is now functioning normally
Any lesson to be learned here?