my harddisk close to being dead

i thought my harddisk was dead. the hdd led constantly lights up in my wl-hdd. i cant access it thru samba. if i telnet/ssh to wl-hdd and browse to /opt (where my hd was mounted) it would just hang and cant telnet anymore and have to reboot my wl-hdd.

i removed the harddisk, put in usb-enclosure and connected it to my pc (winxp with ext3/ifs support), cant browse it, it says my hd is not formatted. i then ran vmware-ubuntu and connected my hd and it miraculously resurrected! i can browse and play files (mp3, avi, jpg) now. i tried connecting to winXP again and i can see my files now.

i dont know what happened there. my harddisk were inaccessible (thru samba in winXP) since yesterday and i just checked it today. did anyone here experience this too? im glad its ok now. im using openwrt btw.