I have three hard drives on my machine (a PC- Windows XP). The C: drive is so small, I have been avoiding that one and put all of my important things (photos, music, the works) on E. Somehow, two days ago, I was on doing some online work and I got a message in a little yellow bubble at the bottom right that said my drive had a write error. WHat does that mean?! So, I rebooted. Sadly, when it came back on, nothing worked. Windows wouldnt start and after a few System Restore sessions and safe modes, I have been able to get it partly back up. However, when I try to open E it gives me one of these messages:
1. Disk Failed !!!
Disk Location: <controller 0, channel 0, Master>
or
2. E:\ is not accessible
The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.

HELP PLEASE! WHat does this mean?! Another clue, my desktop background is of a photo that is on my E drive SO I'm thinking that E is NOT actually wiped since that photo is still appearing.
What can I do?!!

When you set a background picture that picture is copied into your system folder. So the source becomes irrelevant.

The first thing I would do is run the manufacturer's diagnostic on that hard drive.

The manufacturer's web site will have a downlaodable diagnostic that will boot from either a floppy or CD.

how might I find out which manufacturer it is without opening it up?

right click My Computer then click Manage then Device Manager

click the + next to Disk drives