losing access to external hard drive

I have an odd problem with my external hard drive when I have my drive connected (via usb) ill be able to access the 2nd partition on my drive then after a few minutes the 2nd partition will be unaccessible and sometimes an error message will pop up on my screen saying that one of the partitions on the drive cannot be accessed. Iv'e reinstalled windows twice :bor: after the first reinstall my hard drive worked again but my computer crashed later and i had to unplug the drive from the usb port before I restarted windows, after the computer came back on (I ran scandisk on the internal HD from dos) I plugged in my external hard drive and both partitions worked fine for a short while then I lost access to the second partion then the first, I tryed to run scandisk on the external HD but scandisk kept telling me that a disk utility locked the drive etc. I edited the items that startup when I turn the computer on using msconfig and restarted the computer with the bare minimum of programs running, no luck. I reinstalled windows again :bor: and the drive worked again I ran scandisk on the first partion of the external usb drive and there were no errors, I'm worried that if the computer crashes again (it will :sad: ) that the external hard drive will stop working again.
Any suggestions on how to solve this mystery?

System Specs.
OS: Windows 98
cpu:1.4ghz celeron (overdrive processor)
motherboard:Intel 440BX
ram: 448MBs
external hard disk: Western Digital dual combo drive (wd1200bb)
note: I know that my computer has usb 1.1 ports and the drive can use 2.0 but this drive has been working fine for almost a year.

Can you try the drive on another pc? Sounds to me like the USB drive might be getting ready to take a trip south, I'd back up anything of any importance on it while you still can.

I don't have access to another computer, last night I tried using wd's digital diagnostic software. After making sure I had the smartvsd.vxd software I ran the software it worked on my internal drive but when I tried scanning my external usb drive it kept giving me error 11 and telling me the cable test failed. A few minutes later my computer wouldn't recognize the drive (meaning the D: and E: drives wouldn't show up in windows) I unplugged the drive from the first usb port and put it in the second one, a dialog box poped up that recognized the usb port on the front of the hard drive, but the two partitions on the drive still wouldn't show up. I restarted the computer and turned off the drive then I plugged it in and the computer saw the partitions then a few minutes later it wouldn't see the second partition E: drive. then the first one dissapeared I tried opening a dos window in windows and I couldn't access the drive from there either. Since the problem reappers even after reinstalling windows and the info on the drive isn't corrupted I think it's a hardware problem, Im trying to figure out if its the hard drive or my motherboard :eek2: .

Suggestion: try another usb cable and test...could be a cable problem....