Desktop HD icons

Question

I'm running a G3/350 with OS 9.2.2
Sometimes, without warning, the finder will crash and my HD icons will disappear from the desktop with a message that says "the disk is damaged".
A reboot restores everything properly.
I have two HD's that mount on this computer, both have been formatted using a 3rd party utility called FWB HD Toolkit v4.01. Could this be a conflct with this software, a memory issue or bad RAM?

Answer 1

Could this be a problem with:
FWB HD Toolkit 4.01
FWB Toolkit was a well-respected package. Unfortunately, they are out of business, have been for some time, and have no Web presence or support available. There is no evidence I know of that they had problems with software conflicts of any sort, or problems with data integrity in any version. That said, is there a compelling reason you are using an unsupported formatter?
a memory issue or bad RAM
There is always the possibility that a problem like this is caused by bad memory. But it is very difficult to pin down in most cases. The power-on self test is the first line of defense. Apple Hardware Test or third-party memory testing will improve confidence in your memory integrity. Memory tests do NOT produce false positives -- If it says the memory is bad once, believe it -- It will never get better.
You have left out another possibility -- Hard Drive Errors.
These may be caused by magnetic "drift" over time, or by very small head crashes, or for dozens of more obscure reasons. Data in some blocks becomes unreadable even with the drive's built-in error correction. These usually cause hangs or I/O errors, but not always
You have also left out the most likely culprit -- "Just because"
Directory corruption happens due the power failures, software errors, and other reasons that are not well understood. These are the problems Disk First Aid \[Which should properly be called "Directory First Aid"] are designed to Repair. Disk First Aid can easily Repair a non-boot drive, and later versions can repair the Boot drive, but may require a Restart afterward.
Apple utilities are very conservative in what they are willing to fix, and if you have problems that Disk First Aid will not repair, you may need a more "Industrial Strength repair utility such as Disk Warrior.
A reboot restores everything properly.
You may have unresolved Directory Damage, and should run Disk First Aid after such an incident. It may also be useful to run a non-destructive Disk Test, using FWB Tools or Drive Setup. Lastly, If your drive died this afternoon, do you have current backups?
Message was edited by: Grant Bennet-Alder