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HD disappearing?
I have a strange problem that I can't figure out. I have 3 HDD 1TB 1.5TB and 2TB
The 1.5 seems to "disappear" from Windows 7. It happens irragularily. I can go weeks without this happening or it will happen every night. I use this drive to store media (Movies music TV etc.) that I stream to my TV. The 2TB drive does the same with no issues.
Once it "drops" it still shows as listed but does not show how much space or used space is on the drive and any program that accesses the drive hangs while waiting.
If I restart my PC is is good again. . for a day. . or 7.
Is this drive going bad. . I have scanned for errors and bad sectors using several programs and nothing has come up.
Any thoughts? Should i look at replacing it. . should I ask in a hardware forum on a hardware site? The reason I posted here is because there seem to be some very capable people here.
Thanks!
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Comments
I had that problem with my old system, which is going on 4 or 5 years old now. Mainly used as a storage PC, and the HD itself is still alive and kicking. I also have that problem time to time with my current PC. My WD Raptor will just not be there when I boot up Win 7. I reboot and all is fine. I've only had it disappear once while playing a game. I use my Raptor for my games, so I also have steam installed to it. Was playing something on steam and the game crashed. I go to relaunch it and steam stops responding. Open up my computer and it's telling me the G drive (my Raptor) is no longer there. I reboot, and bam it's back. Drive health shows up as good. So really not worried about it too much.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Could be a number of things.
Faulty HDD
Faulty Motherboard( Try plugging the drive into a different SATA port)
Faulty Sata lead
Low Spec power supply, its important to have a good power supply that can supply enough power all the time. IF ya got an el cheapo £15.99 power supply then expect to have issues.
First I would try a different port on the mobo and different SATA lead.
This would be my first test as well.
I do have an issue with my HDD disappearing sometimes, and a reboot sometimes brings it back up, othertimes it doesn't. When it doesnt' I also find that the HDD doesn't show in the BIOS either.
Opening the case and replugging the SATA cable fixes the issue, and I usually have the problem after I move the case in some way, sometimes even with just a little nudge from the desk shaking.
Its a good place to start in any case.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/1567-63-windows-hard-drives-disappear-sleep-resume
I cant find the microsoft thread that i posted the problems i was having in. But it all comes down to drivers.
Wow thanks for all the great responses. I will try the suggestions out and see what happens.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
I'd check the SATA cable, power cable, and port first as well. Sometimes those SATA cables can be awfully loose, and SATA cables & ports are easy to just swap out and check quickly. Although if it always comes back after a reboot it's probably closer to a firmware/BIOS problem or a driver problem, as a loose cable isn't going to magically reconnect just because you rebooted your computer.
I'd recommend checking for a BIOS update for your motherboard (or a firmware update if it's a independent SATA card). I had a similar issue with RAM (mysteriously half my RAM would disappear, then come back after a reboot). I updated the BIOS (the problem wasn't listed as a fix, but I gave it a shot anyway), and it fixed the problem.