Windows 7 - win7-64 has stopped seeing my 9Tb GPT partition - areca 5020 raid-box

Windows 7-64 has stopped seeing my 9Tb GPT partition in an areca 5020 raid-box
and wants to format it.

disk management shows it as "raw."

areca web interface shows the volume as "normal" - all seems good.

paragon partition manager sees a 189.9Gb partition, as does r-studio, which also sees the directory structure - but i'm afraid of doing anything at all until i'm sure what's going on - the data is of great value.

this may be caused by the fact that once my Windows 7-64 machine had a hiccup, i plugged the box to a winXP32 box before recalling that it's not going to see the GPT partition.

or - could it be a limitation of usb3, perhaps - the 2nd Windows 7-64 box doesn't have eSata, so the box is now hanging off an eSata to USB3 adapter made by belkin.

thoughts on what's the safest way forward

fyi - this was just a scare - something about asus usb3 or the bytecc eSata to USB3 dongle. on another system my volume was undamaged.