@$*£€&!!! Windows!
Drive isn’t dead.
Just windows being windows!
All of that just to find out the drive is fine, windows just doesn’t want to admit it exists on the drive!
Because why not?!
I deduce some frustration in your expression.
I’m sorry to hear that you were suffering just from Windows malaise.
In 1982 I started my career as a software tester. By 1988 i had decided that nobody cared about software quality because they kept buying Microsoft products.
Microsoft has gotten better over the years, but they still rely more on market muscle than a good, quality product.