Sata Hard Drive Disappearing From System, Then Re-appearing At Reboot...

[hippovsmouse]

I have a 3tb sata hard drive that is vanishing from the system seemingly at random-no traces. Then upon reboot, it's there again acting normally for awhile, all data intact.

I've changed the drive to a different sata port- problem persists. I have 3 things left to try:
-check windows update for any newer drivers for it
-try a different power supply connector
-lastly try a different sata cable

Once i've tried all 3, if the problem persists, what would you guys think the problem is?
Strangely, the drive behaved normally for the first week I added it to the system, long enough for me to restore 2.5 tb of data to it from a backup hard drive.
It also behaved normally for about 5 months while in a usb enclosure.

Thoughts appreciated- this is no small matter for me, this is the drive im supposed to use so that my backup drive stays safe and clean

 

[C1]

A possibility is that you have dueling HDD power management/suspension systems in force.

Start in the BIOS to ensure correct settings in the Power Management section.

Inspect AHCI ATA controller properties in Device Manager for any hibernate settings.

Inspect OS Power Management settings in Control Panel to ensure HDD not directed to being in "standby."

Ensure no third party application has been installed to manage HDD activity.


The HDD itself no doubt has firmware "standby" mode built-in. This may be in conflict with or being spooked by other/redundant HDD power management systems currently in-place.

Implement SoftJock's MDIS to keep the HDD system "awake" to learn what happens.

 

[hippovsmouse]

Were it any of these, wouldn't the 2nd 3tb have vanished as well? (which it never did, but also I never used it didn't even decrypt it). I had it in the same case as the problematic one until a day or so ago.

A possibility is that you have dueling HDD power management/suspension systems in force.

Start in the BIOS to ensure correct settings in the Power Management section.

Inspect AHCI ATA controller properties in Device Manager for any hibernate settings.

Inspect OS Power Management settings in Control Panel to ensure HDD not directed to being in "standby."

Ensure no third party application has been installed to manage HDD activity.


The HDD itself no doubt has firmware "standby" mode built-in. This may be in conflict with or being spooked by other/redundant HDD power management systems currently in-place.

Implement SoftJock's MDIS to keep the HDD system "awake" to learn what happens.

 

[hippovsmouse]

I downloaded a hitachi drive diagnostic tool, ran a surface test, and it passed. But when I run the windows check disk, it always causes the drive to disappear from the system until reboot.

I still need to try changing the power supply connector to a different one.
Also, there is a small 70 gig sata drive plugged into the other sata port (the port that the suspect drive was plugged into until I swapped it) windows checked this disk and completed and the drive is behaving normally

 

[Puffnstuff]

Can you try moving the sata cable to a different port on the motherboard and see if it helps? I had a similar issue with my mom's pc the other day and it turned out to be a bad sata cable but we replaced the drive anyway with a better unit. I've also seen this happen when a ps on right on the edge of failing and too much draw occurs for it to handle forcing it to drop peripherals.

 

[Dahak]

I've changed the drive to a different sata port- problem persists. I have 3 things left to try:
-check windows update for any newer drivers for it
-try a different power supply connector
-lastly try a different sata cable

If you have already tried these things, and checked the power management C1 mentioned, then it might be a fair guess to say that the drive is at fault.

one last thing you could try is to only have your os drive and this one connect if you can and see if the problem still happens or not.

as its a backup drive, it may not hurt to run the full hgst diagnotics on it as it have seen them pass the quick but fail the full, as the quick on does basic checks

 

[hippovsmouse]

My last test - replacing the sata cable - the system has been running the disk check much longer than with any other thing i've tried so far, normally it had disappeared from the system by this point, but it's still running.
This was my last thing to try before I assumed the disk to be going bad. If the disk check completes properly, then it will have been the sata cable

 

[hippovsmouse]

Well the disk check completed normally and no errors were found on the drive. I guess it was the sata cable- the last thing I tried, because I figured it was the least likely.

So I guess there was nothing wrong with the drive rather it was a bad sata cable.
How often do sata cables go bad? This has been a pain ;(

 

[LTC8K6]

I've had a couple of bad SATA cables.

 

[sm625]

MY computer also does this. I also have a 3TB HDD. I found that if I go into device manager and do a "Scan for hardware changes" it causes the drive to reappear. So I made a batch file with the following line:

devcon rescan

This brings back my drive just by double clicking the batch file. I dont use it very often so I havent dug deeper for a solution.

 

[hippovsmouse]

MY computer also does this. I also have a 3TB HDD. I found that if I go into device manager and do a "Scan for hardware changes" it causes the drive to reappear. So I made a batch file with the following line:

devcon rescan

This brings back my drive just by double clicking the batch file. I dont use it very often so I havent dug deeper for a solution.

10-4 , the thing is- since I replaced the sata cable, my drive has no longer been vanishing, so your issue may be different from the one I had (not sure)

 

[J3S73R]

It's good that it was a simple fix. The last time I had something happen like that it was the motherboard. Leaking caps... yay...

Anyways awesome that it was only the cable!

 

[sm625]

10-4 , the thing is- since I replaced the sata cable, my drive has no longer been vanishing, so your issue may be different from the one I had (not sure)

Dont be so sure it is fixed. I shut down my machine the other day (instead of letting it hibernate which I normally do 99% of the time) and the drive has not disappeared yet. It has been 4 or 5 days, including several overnight hibernation cycles. But it will eventually disappear again, of that I have no doubt. Sometimes it takes a while.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I've had a couple of bad SATA cables.

+1 here too.

It happens. I actually haven't had a "real" HDD failure in quite some time. I replace a SATA cable in "the family" once every year or two though.

I did have a dvd drive failure a couple months ago that was a legit drive failure, but I definitely tried a replacement cable first!

 

[hippovsmouse]

thanks guys for all the help on this btw