Situation: I am located in a rural, unincorporated area of Mississippi. A three-wire connection between a main panel and an out-building is still allowed as long as the two structures do not share another common electrical path between them. Truthfully, there is not code enforcement period. Please do not hijack the thread with commentary about that. It is what it is. I have two sections of direct-burial aluminum wire. I believe it is 2-2-4. I may have that part wrong, but suffice it to say the wire size is suitable for the application—whatever it is. I had all that checked out and recommended and cross-checked. As I am typing, I just do not remember for sure. Section 1 of wire goes from the main panel to a 100 amp disconnect switch located in the edge of the yard. Section 2 goes from the disconnect switch to a 100 amp sub-panel in a metal storage building. Total distance of about 150ft. The metal building was built and section 2 of the wiring has been in place for a number of years, but section 2 of the wire was not connected to anything until about 2 months ago. (The wire had been installed in anticipation of the house being located where the disconnect switch now sits. House location was built a few feet over from the originally intended location.) The disconnect was installed about two months ago as was Section 1 of the wire which runs from the main panel to the disconnect. The disconnect was installed to connect Section 1 to Section 2 rather than a splice. The disconnect, main panel, and sub-panel are all grounded with their own grounding rods. While the sub-panel is 100 amp, there is only one breaker installed, and it is a 20 amp breaker with fluorescent lights powered from it. When everything was connected 2 months ago, sub-panel showed 250 volts or so across the hot legs coming into the sub-panel. For the past two weeks, I have not been in shed and had not turned on lights. Now, I discover lights are not working. Sometime in those two weeks, things went awry. There has been no digging or disturbance of any kind along the path of either section of wire since everything was connected two months ago. Here is what I have done to diagnose problem. 1. I checked voltage on sub-panel in the storage building. Voltage across the hot legs is about 20-30 volts. I did not write that number down, but suffice it to say it is small. Voltage from hot leg #1 to ground is 27 volts. Voltage from hot leg #2 to ground is 4.5 volts. Same for both when checked against neutral. Voltage was checked by putting probe on the slight amount of exposed wire at end that is going into the lugs on the panel rather than probing on the lugs themselves. I was assuming that might eliminate the possibility of a bad connection of the wire to the lugs by probing against the wire itself. 2. I checked the outgoing voltage on the disconnect which connects to sub-panel in metal building. Voltage across the hot legs was 251 volts. Once again, I put the probes on the wire itself rather than the lugs at the bottom of the disconnect. Somewhere between the disconnect and the sub-panel, there is obviously a problem. My questions: 1. Does conventional wisdom suggest that I have a break (or almost break) in both the individual hot wires along section 2 of wire? It seems terribly unlikely to me that both wires would have a fault in them considering they recently worked and there has been no opportunity for physical damage to occur. If only one failed, I assume I would still get a 120-130 volts between the good leg and ground at the sub-panel? 2. Can anyone think of a scenario where this is just a bad connection at either the disconnect or the sub-panel? Is it possible for this to be the case considering I am getting low voltage when probing against the wires instead of the lugs into which they are connected? Could the outside of the exposed wire be oxidized too much to get a reading? The aluminum paste stuff that goes on aluminum wire was used, but perhaps not enough was used. Would it be worthwhile to remove and reconnect the wires coming out of the disconnect and the ones going into the subpanel? As you can imagine, I really do not want to spend another $500-$1000 for a new trench and wiring to run new wires. Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated.

This is the result of an Amana electric range. It's about 3 years old and never an issue before. I just hate to fix the cord without knowing what caused it. Any ideas? Should I just fix the cord? What would you do? TIA!