🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm hoping someone is reading their news today and can help me.

I have a Performer 6400 with 2Gb Hard disk running macOS 8.5 (since end
of 1998) with HFS+
and a DAT & Zip drives

Until last week, it was fine, now however I have a strange problem - I
can't see the Harddisk in Open dialogs.

I can see it's icon on Desktop (screen), and its the startup volume.
I can double-click the icon and open the disk, work down folders etc.
I can get info on it.
I can drag&drop files from my RAM disk to any folder on the HD.
I can launch apps with a double-click & open files that way.
I've run Disk First Aid and Norton Utils and they say it's ok.
I've scanned it with latest SAM (1/3/99) defs I can get (I know there's
a later one, but having trouble getting that).
I've rebuilt the desktop and tried booting with extensions off.
I don't have much shareware etc and very few third party extensions.
I've updated the drivers from the 8.5 CD.

It's possible I've corrupted the Finder or System, but can't just
reinstall these.
I can't see its icon if I boot from CD and installer hangs if I
'continue' before customerisation screen comes up (guess its trying for
the disk).
I can't turn file sharing on - alert just says 'File sharing could not
be enabled'

I 'could' re-format the disk since I've just made a backup with
Retrospect, but I'm worried I won't be able to get the disk back and I
really need this baby right now.

Any suggestions?

--
David Ferrington