Old external disk - drivers installed again?

I have been using a USB2 external drive for months now.

Today when I plugged in the cable(into the same port as I always use), Windows 7 popped a "Installing drivers" notification.

Why would this happen? - nothing has changed on the system.

And how can I check that all is OK, with the disk still performing as a USB2 device?

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Ah ha - I've looked in the Event Log - I see a Disk Error 11 there - maybe that triggers the driver install. Windows Online Help does not explain what that error is. But I did find this: "This problem is typically caused by a failing cable that connects the drive to the computer."

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If I replace the cable, do I need to do anything to get the disk working as normal again? For example, tidy up USB drivers and let Windows install them again?

Has the drive normally been plugged in prior to boot up? It is normal to see this message when connecting a drive to a live win7 session.

There is no need to tidy up the drivers, it is using the same one it did before, there will not be multiple copies, it's just re-registering it.

Thank you.

Nope, I use it for archives and just plug it in every so often.

Bravely , I looked through the Registry, and there are multiple references to USB devices, so I doubt that I'll be ediiting them. I also saw some entries in the Action Center / Reliability History.