Firewire drive wouldn't show up on desktop; suddenly appeared. Why?

Man, it's hard to fit everything I want to say in the subject line.
I recently had a power supply failure on my G5 tower (one of the first 1.8 dual models). After replacing the power supply, everything appeared to be in working order, with no harm done (apart from my bank account). However, the external Firewire drive I use to backup the main drive would not appear on the desktop. Didn't matter if I restarted the whole machine or the drive, hooked it up to either port...the drive simply would not appear. When I turned the drive on, it was clear that it was still functioning in some fashion, as the read/write light on the front of the case was lit. The System Profiler did not see the drive either.
That was the last day or two. This morning, I turned the machine on, and the drive still did not appear. I went through my usual morning websites, when I heard the tell-tale sound of Spotlight indexing a drive. I looked up at the corner and saw the drive icons (it has two partitions) on the desktop, and the Backup partition was being indexed. I checked them briefly (as I had to leave for work), and everything appeared to be as it was before the death of the power supply.
So, my question is...why? What would cause the drive to suddenly appear this morning when it hadn't for the last two days? I did absolutely nothing different this morning when starting up the machine, yet today the drive was seen. I'm happy that it's working again, but extremely curious as to what might have caused this. Thoughts?

Hi Brian Bernardini-
I would presume that the drive is starting to fail. It would be wise to back it up as soon as possible?
What model and make is the drive?
Luck-
-DP

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