@ jgcalifornia
The problem was exactly what Avrett described "The alias bit in the drives name had been flipped" I located and downloaded the trial version of the program Path Finder and used it to flip the alias bit back off. And Voilà! the drive was back to life with all data intact!!
I had the exact same problem. Your solution was "on the nose"! problem solved.
My problem started with an upgrade to 10.6 and involved a Maxtor drive... Troubling?!
