Seagate SV35 HDD disconnecting randomly?

[newz0r]

Hey, so I''ve been reading the reviews on this site for years, but this is my first time posting... I've been having issues with an old Seagate hard disk that I bought nearly 5 years ago when I made my current desktop build, and after unsuccessfully attempting to solve the issue for half a year, I decided it's time I asked for help.

What I'm experiencing is that my secondary HDD that I use mostly for media and games is randomly (or maybe it's when it's under a particular load?) disconnecting from the system. Like it just vanishes from explorer. And all handles to it become invalid. There is no BSoD, because my OS (Windows 7 Ultimate) is on an SSD. The issues started happening around late summer of 2015. The frequency of reproduction varies. Sometimes it disconnects about 6-7 times a day, other days it will work without disconnecting at all.


The problematic HDD is a Seagate 1TB SV35, with a model number ST31000526SV. The system it's in is as follows:

- Windows 7 Ultimate SP1
- ASUS P8-Z68 gen 1 mobo
- i7 2600k CPU OC'd to 4.5Ghz
- 16GB (4x4) 1600Mhz Corsair Vengeance Blue RAM @1.5V
- ASUS GTX 570 Direct CU II GPU OC'd to 910Mhz core, 2000Mhz memory, maxed out voltage at 1.1V (but problem happens even at stock)
- OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD (primary, OS is here)
- Seagate SV35 1TB HDD (the problematic disk)
- Corsair HX 1000W PSU


Things I've tried:

- after the HDD disconnects, the only way to bring it back is to unplug the SATA power cable (not the data cable, but rather the cable that connects to the PSU) and plug it right back in. Alternatively reboot the system which has the same result.

- unplugging and plugging back just the SATA data cable (the one that connects to the mobo) has no effect. HDD remains offline.

- updating the Marvel Controller driver from v.1.0.0.1045 to the latest: results in a BSoD if I attempt to update it through Device Manager (there is no installer available, the official download is just a bunch of files that I just point the "Update Driver" in device manager to). I have to use a recovery USB to fix the corrupted driver after that or I can't boot into Windows at all.

- updating the Marvel Controller through Windows Update works (to v. 1.2.0.0 I think): however there is no difference, it still randomly disconnects the HDD, so I reverted back to the 1045 driver.

- updated the JMicron JMB36X driver to version 8.0.910.14 and the problem still persists

- ran Contig to defragment the HDD... it disconnected about 5 mins into the defragmentation. Ran it again on the specific folder it disconnected at (Music) and it disconnected again 2 more times before finally defragmenting the folder. Ran the full HDD defragmentation again and it disconnected on another folder. Ran it once again and it finally finished after about 2 hours. 0% fragmentation currently

- ran chkdsk from command prompt - no bad sectors detected

- ran Seagate Tools - S.M.A.R.T. test failed, all other tests passed, however every single test gave a log write error.

http://imgur.com/6NZWEEs

- ran HWinfo and Hard Disk Sentinel - both claim the HDD health is good and there is no risk of failure.

Other notes:

- disconnects often during gaming: but the game continues to run until it needs to load new data at which point it crashes, if the game is ran from the OS drive, it continues to run indefinitely, but explorer.exe tends to crash anyway as a lot of the icons in my taskbar are shortcuts to the HDD

- connected an external Western Digital My Book Pro 1TB HDD via the eSATA port on the motherboard.... HDD disconnected after about 20 mins. Connected it via USB and it remained online indefinitely. Connected said external HDD to laptop via eSATA and there were no problems at all. Remained online.

- finally, at least once a day the entire system freezes for around 3 or 4 mins. Compltely frozen. Then it unfreezes and everything moves at hyper speed for about a second (youtube videoes flash through minutes of content in less than a second, games fast forward everything that would normally have happened in those 3-4 mins all in 1 second as well), after which any games that were running crash, and it shows the internet had disconnected and is attempting to reconnect (I guess because it was frozen it lost its connection)

I may have missed mentioning a test or two (after all I've been fighting with this for over half a year now), but at this point I'm out of ideas. Originally I thought the issue is the HDD itself, since it doesn't occur on the OS drive SSD... but now I'm thinking it may be the motherboard itself that is dying. And I have no idea how to test that. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated!

Apologies for the enormous post.

EDIT: Forgot to mention 2 more things:
- tried changing the cables
- also tried changing the ports on both the mobo and the PSU

 

[Ketchup]

From what I can see, you have 6 SATA ports available on that board through the Z68 chipset (2 gray and 4 blue), so there should be no need to be using ports from the Marvell controller (navy blue). So if you haven't already, put all drivers on the Intel ports. And you might as well just disable the ports in the BIOS. They are notorious for causing issues.

If that doesn't help, or doesn't help enough, get a new SATA cable for the hard drive.

If you are still having issues, disconnect the hard drive long enough to tell if the freezing issue is still there (a day, it sounds like), and confirm that the hard drive is actually what is causing the various problems.

 

[newz0r]

Hey, thanks for the reply!

So as previously mentioned, I did try using the other SATA ports on the mobo in various combinations. Though I'm fairly certain at least one of the drives was in the navy blue slot during those tests. I've also replaced the sata cable on the offending drive, as well as its power cable as I found the PSU box from way back and it had spare parts in it.

The BIOS looked like this, with the navy blue slots not appearing at all in the SATA configuration:
http://i.imgur.com/8cqDPIJ.png
http://i.imgur.com/ALiC3PL.png

I followed your advice and moved both drives to the regular blue slots and now the BIOS looks like this:
http://i.imgur.com/SchxKDP.png

After which, I disabled the Marvell controller entirely.

Save and reboot and I got a CPU Fan 1 Error??? Whatever, I ignored it and it reset and booted into windows. I opened the case and all fans were running so no idea what that error was about.

Now I guess we wait and see what happens...

 

[newz0r]

Well there it goes... HDD disappeared again. About 8 hours in after the last changes. So we can rule out the Marvell controller now at least.

 

[Ketchup]

Well there it goes... HDD disappeared again. About 8 hours in after the last changes. So we can rule out the Marvell controller now at least.

How many hours has it been since the (a) computer was last turned on/rebooted and (b) you accessed the drive? It could just be the hard drive powering down (which is normal), with the only weird part being that the drive letter disappears.

If you go into Computer Management\Storage\Disk Management, is the drive gone from there as well?

 

[newz0r]

How many hours has it been since the (a) computer was last turned on/rebooted and (b) you accessed the drive? It could just be the hard drive powering down (which is normal), with the only weird part being that the drive letter disappears.

If you go into Computer Management\Storage\Disk Management, is the drive gone from there as well?

The entirety of My Documents is stored on that drive, Music, Videos, Pictures, Downloads. In addition to that I use it for the majority of my games, as well as non intensive programs (intensive would be Adobe Suite). So the drive is in constant use... when it bothers working that is.

As for the computer, it's been again the same amount of hours. I had to turn it off to access the BIOS and disable the marvell controller, and after that it hasn't been turned off again at all. About 9 hours now and counting.

Fairly certain the HDD disappears from Disk Management as well when the problem occurs. I will check again when it disconnects again. The power options of course are set to never turn HDDs off....

 

[Burpo]

Replace the aging drive..
NewEgg review "The hard drive would constantly time out while transferring large amounts of data and eventually disappear from My Computer. A reset wouldn't bring back the drive, but a complete power shut down would."

New 2TB Hitachi is $59.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD2FA1869

 

[newz0r]

Replace the aging drive..
NewEgg review "The hard drive would constantly time out while transferring large amounts of data and eventually disappear from My Computer. A reset wouldn't bring back the drive, but a complete power shut down would."

New 2TB Hitachi is $59.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD2FA1869

Honestly, I'm thinking of going all out if I will be replacing it. Western Digital Black 4TB or 6TB would almost triple my performance (80MB/s on the seagate according to CrystalMark, vs ~245MB/s on the 6TB WD).

Also, I'm not in the US, so a 2TB Hitachi here costs the equivalent of $197 according to google.

 

[Ketchup]

Good suggestion by Burpo, as I am honestly out of ideas. I don't think it's dying, as it's been having this issue for a long period of time. It's just a quirky drive. Thank you fir putting up with my suggestions.

 

[newz0r]

Good suggestion by Burpo, as I am honestly out of ideas. I don't think it's dying, as it's been having this issue for a long period of time. It's just a quirky drive. Thank you fir putting up with my suggestions.

Thanks for taking the time to write up suggestions
It's Easter here, so I won't be able to do much until wednesday or thursday in terms of a new drive. But if someone else has any ideas, I'm all ears until then
(oh and in case you're wondering, the 6TB WD Black is the equivalent of $350 here, so seems like a better deal than the nearly $200 hitachi 2TB)

 

[newz0r]

Bought the 6TB WD Black and cloned the entire Seagate HDD on it. So far so good...