random shutdowns with external HDD

[ViviTheMage]

I noticed my PC started to randomly shutdown with external WD hard drive - 2 TB. Anyone else notice this?

Windows 7 .. the drive is connected 24/7...computer is on 24/7. Seems to reboot within 1-4 days.

When it does reboot, it says BIOS cannot find OS. I have to shutdown manually, and power on for it to work again.

OS is off a 3ware raid card.

Windows 7.

I took the drive off for about 10 days, NO issues with rebooting. Nothing in event viewer either...I am running a disk check, but beyond that, WTF? haha

 

[RebateMonger]

The "obvious" answer is a disk-related problem. If a disk-system problem crashes Windows, you'll often not get any Event Log messages because Windows can't write to the disk(s), which is why it crashed in the first place.

As you said, start with disk diagnostics tests (run a couple of disk maker's tests). It never hurts to run an overnight memory scan, either, if it's not ECC memory.

The computer boots up and runs fine with the external disk disconnected? I think you said that, but I'm just making sure.

 

[ViviTheMage]

The "obvious" answer is a disk-related problem. If a disk-system problem crashes Windows, you'll often not get any Event Log messages because Windows can't write to the disk(s), which is why it crashed in the first place.

As you said, start with disk diagnostics tests (run a couple of disk maker's tests). It never hurts to run an overnight memory scan, either, if it's not ECC memory.

The computer boots up and runs fine with the external disk disconnected? I think you said that, but I'm just making sure.

Correct.

I am also running a chkdsk on it now, and damn, it's going on 10 hours...going VERY slow.

for reference, this is the external :

WDBAAU0020HBK-NESN

 

[corkyg]

It could also be rebooting due to an update. I have found on occasion, that if an external drive is present, the system tries to boot to it, and the result is what you describe. The immediate fix is to turn off the external drive until the boot process loads Windows 7.

As a result, I keep the external drive off unless I am actually using it.

One would think this could be resolved in BIOS, but . . . that doesn't always seem to work.

 

[ViviTheMage]

What sort of update? That's what happens, it wont let me boot back into windows without unplugging it first.