Volume on External Hard Drive Suddenly Disappeared

Hello
I'm having problems with an external hard disk which i partitioned into two volumes several months ago. Since this afternoon one of the volumes will NOT mount on the desktop of OSX 3.9 The other volume on the same external drive DOES mount.
I restarted my mac using OS9 and the mystery volume reappears on the desktop, (which is reassuring because i can see that all my files are all still there). But some of these files are only useful to me with OSX applications.
How can i get this volume to mount?
I've already tried in Disk Utilities. It's name appears, but in that faded colour which means that my mac knows its there, but refuses to mount it - even when i ask nicely in Disk Utilities. I even asked Disk Utilities to run a check of the disk and do any necessary repair work.... which it did and now tells me that the volume "seems ok"! But unmountable :((
I've just tried connecting the disk to a neighbour's mac (OSX) and same problem, even using his cables. But i can still get the mystery volume to mount on a OS9 desktop...
Would be grateful for THE solution :)) ...urgently!
dswimmer

Hello! I've seen problems like this before and sometimes Diskwarrior can repair the directory for that volume when diskutility can't. Have you tried booting from the install cd to see if disk utility can see and repair it there? Tom

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