The curious case of the missing hard drive

[Davros1987]

Hi folks,

Been having an issue for the past week or so. One of my hard drives seemingly keeps disappearing after start-up, most of the time its there, as normal, but intermittently after start up it is gone altogether (boot time seems rather increased on these occasions.) Generally a restart will solve the issue and i also checked the leads were secure, and everything seems fine there. I've been scratching my head over this one and wondered if anyone could cast a bit of light onto the situation?

If its relevant I use one SSD for my boot drive and another for Steam, there never seems to be an issue with these, but have another single HDD just for bits a pieces, and this is the one that keeps wandering off.

A mate suggested i update my drivers as it might be an issue there but I wouldn't be sure which ones would need doing.

Any help would be great.

 

[Wraith]

What's the make and model of the Drive in question?
Could be a faulty SATA lead, I recently had issues with a Drive vanishing and magically reappearing.

Could also be a faulty drive controller.

 

[maniac]

does it dissappear from "My Computer" only or physically too, I mean you open your case and its not there :O......

 

[Davros1987]

What's the make and model of the Drive in question?
Could be a faulty SATA lead, I recently had issues with a Drive vanishing and magically reappearing.

Could also be a faulty drive controller.

It's a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB, i'll look into changing the SATA lead, i'll need to get another one first though, whats the solution if its a faulty drive controller?

does it dissappear from "My Computer" only or physically too, I mean you open your case and its not there :O......

Just my computer smart guy, and by my computer I of course mean "My Computer"

That'd be some weird s**t though, if every day you sat down and pieces just started going missing out your rig :huh:

 

[Wraith]

It's a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB, i'll look into changing the SATA lead, i'll need to get another one first though, whats the solution if its a faulty drive controller?

I've never looked into fixing a drive controller sorry I just bin the drive and get a new one.

Not sure if anyone else has swapped out a controller before.

 

[Dragolu]

I have had drives do that and fail shortly afterwards. I would backup your data now. After that baring a cable issue. Would run S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics if available and windows check disk for starters.

 

[Bartacus]

I had the exact same thing happen. The culprit was a loose (and wonky) SATA cable. Replaced that with a new one, problem solved. I seriously doubt it's a controller issue, especially if only 1 drive is vanishing. My $0.02CDN.

 

[Davros1987]

Thanks for the advice all, i'll update when i solve the issue or if i run into difficulties.

I have had drives do that and fail shortly afterwards. I would backup your data now. After that baring a cable issue. Would run smart diagnostics if available and windows check disk for starters.

My first though to that was "naa it probably wont come to that" and then i looked and seen how much i would miss if it suddenly packed in, needless to say everything has been backed up haha! cheers!

 

[Wraith]

I had the exact same thing happen. The culprit was a loose (and wonky) SATA cable. Replaced that with a new one, problem solved. I seriously doubt it's a controller issue, especially if only 1 drive is vanishing. My $0.02CDN.

When I said it "could" be the controller I don't mean the sata controller on the motherboard I mean the controller board that is found on the under side of the HDD usually removable with a couple of hex bolts, they fail quite often usually through over heating or static discharge it's not forced to be that it could just be that the drives health is critical or as simple as the sata lead is faulty.

EDIT to check the health of the drive use a program like Speedfan and check the S.M.A.R.T data.

 

[NeverBackDown]

I had a cable loose once.. it would work but the connections wouldn't be secaure despite being snapped into place. When it would short out the PC would shut down.. replaced the cable with some old sata 1 cable i had and its been working fine since.

 

[Davros1987]

Quick update.

Replaced the SATA cable with a new one, but the problem still persists. Starting to think the drive may be faulty. How likely is it that a drive will just throw its hand in like that? i haven't really abused it or anything.

 

[Feronix]

Depends on how old the drive is. Should live for a fairly long time under normal circumstances though.

I'm assuming you're running the latest Sata and chipset drivers?

What motherboard are you using?

 

[Wraith]

Quick update.

Replaced the SATA cable with a new one, but the problem still persists. Starting to think the drive may be faulty. How likely is it that a drive will just throw its hand in like that? i haven't really abused it or anything.

Have you tried a different SATA port?
What is your controller set to in the bios AHCI or IDE?
Did you manage to get a S.M.A.R.T read out?

 

[Bartacus]

Quick update.

Replaced the SATA cable with a new one, but the problem still persists. Starting to think the drive may be faulty. How likely is it that a drive will just throw its hand in like that? i haven't really abused it or anything.

I find hard drive problems to be strictly luck of the draw. I managed to fry 6 HDDs in 6 months between work and home one year, ranging from less than 3 months old to several years old. I wasn't abusing mine either, very light usage. Hard to say what causes things like that.

 

[Davros1987]

Have you tried a different SATA port?
What is your controller set to in the bios AHCI or IDE?
Did you manage to get a S.M.A.R.T read out?

Apologies for late reply,

I will switch round the SATA port and give that a shot, something i didnt even consider. (note to self, be more methodical.)

Controller set to AHCI in BIOS, and S.M.A.R.T is also enabled within the BIOS, not sure if thats what you mean by read out, im still finding my way with this stuff.

I find hard drive problems to be strictly luck of the draw. I managed to fry 6 HDDs in 6 months between work and home one year, ranging from less than 3 months old to several years old. I wasn't abusing mine either, very light usage. Hard to say what causes things like that.

If the drive HAS taken a crap, can i just connect a new HDD while the old one is still alive, move everything over whole sale and then replace the drive with the fresh one as if nothing was different?

Sorry if thats a really obvious question.

 

[Wraith]

If the drive HAS taken a crap, can i just connect a new HDD while the old one is still alive, move everything over whole sale and then replace the drive with the fresh one as if nothing was different?

Sorry if thats a really obvious question.

If it's just your storage drive (D:\) sure thing swapping in a new one is no problem so long as it's formatted, only other thing you'll need to do is reinstall any programs that were already on it before other wise windows is going to look for programs that were there and aren't anymore.

I find hard drive problems to be strictly luck of the draw. I managed to fry 6 HDDs in 6 months between work and home one year, ranging from less than 3 months old to several years old. I wasn't abusing mine either, very light usage. Hard to say what causes things like that.

Damn 6 drives in 6 months! Wow never heard of anyone go through that many.

 

[Bartacus]

If the drive HAS taken a crap, can i just connect a new HDD while the old one is still alive, move everything over whole sale and then replace the drive with the fresh one as if nothing was different?

Sorry if thats a really obvious question.

If the drive doesn't disappear while copying files, you'll get that done. As long as it isn't a boot drive of course.

Damn 6 drives in 6 months! Wow never heard of anyone go through that many.

Yeah I had the "nerd touch of death" for a while there. I finally started suspecting flaky power in my house, so I bought a UPS. Haven't had a dead drive since.

 

[mArTyN]

made a mental note......DON'T lend Bartacus any HDD's

 

[TheOuterOne]

This isn't really going to help you much, but this was the first thing I could think of when I saw the thread title :lol:

Where's my plates? ):