Oh, I'm 99% sure it's a hardware fault given that the disk is entirely non-existent according to the BIOS once I reboot. I assume it's a heat issue because it has only occurred twice, each time after the computer had been on for about 12 hours, both including long sessions on Oblivion (the only thing likely to tax my graphics card, for starters).
I didn't think to check the event log but it's worth a look. Incidentally, WinXP dies just as badly as Win98 does when hardware is screwing up. I couldn't even get the task manager to come up during the last minute or so of operation before I hit reset.
Connections were fine last time, when I did check them for this reason. I don't think the drive would magically start working again on both occasions if it was a connectivity issue anyway.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-11-06 02:39 pm (UTC)I didn't think to check the event log but it's worth a look. Incidentally, WinXP dies just as badly as Win98 does when hardware is screwing up. I couldn't even get the task manager to come up during the last minute or so of operation before I hit reset.
Connections were fine last time, when I did check them for this reason. I don't think the drive would magically start working again on both occasions if it was a connectivity issue anyway.