BIOS suddenly stopped recognizing my hard drives

[bakasnepai]

I've been searching all over Google for a solution, yet I'm having difficulty figuring out how my issue occurred.

Earlier today, I turned on my desktop to just check for some e-mails before going out for lunch with some family. I turned off my computer and then left for lunch. After 5 hours, I turn on the computer and it hangs at "Loading Operating System"

So I checked out my BIOS and as I suspected, my hard drives are no longer recognized.

My primary drive is a Kingston 64GB SSD. My other two drives are: 1TB Seagate and 2TB WD Green.
My Mobo is a Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 Rev. 2 I'm running Win7 Ultimate 64-bit

I honestly don't get how something like this could occur, especially since I was able to use it earlier today.

So for troubleshooting:

I went into the CMOS and tried using the fail-safe default and nothing worked. I checked my PSU connections and sata connections in case anything was loose and they were fine. I disconnected my secondary drives and just left my SSD connected. My sata drives are set to IDE and I tried changing it to ACHS(?) and still no good.

I used different sata cables and even connected it to each different sata channel, but again nothing.

I'm not sure what else to do now. I'm not very knowledgeable about computer terminology as well...

I'd appreciate any help I can get. Thanks!

 

[almartin]

Have you tried to boot from your win 7 disc and run startup and repair? If that don't work try removing the cmos battery for 30 sec and it will reset the bios.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,

Here are a couple more things to try, to pin down your problem.

It would be very unusual for all 3 SATA ports to fail at the same time, unless the whole PCH failed, and you wouldn't get this far.
Disconnect the other HDD's except for your system SSD and put it back on IDE mode. Recheck the BIOS on the CMOS page to see if you see the SSD, or your DVD burner.

In the BIOS on the PC Heath page, check to see if all 3 voltages are within tolerances. Possibly a bad 5V or 12V rail could effect all attached devices.

If you have a beep code speaker, put in on the front I/O speaker pins to better isolate the error. The fact you get on the monitor "Loading Operating System" means the Boot Manager and Boot Loader 'should be OK", otherwise it wouldn't be booting to an OS. It must also see the SSD or you would have seen "non system disk or disk error" if there weren't a disk signature. So the initial BIOS findings don't match these readings.

When you have Start Up problems that occur before the 'Starting Windows' screen, the first thing, as Al said, is to try StartUp Repair via the DVD installation disk. Then check for Hardware issues. The speaker beep code could tell you if there is a MB/Memory issue.

Then try System Restore, if just after the Splash screen you can F8 get into the Advanced Boot Options before it tries to load the OS.

Let us know what you find so we can all be thinking about it.

 

[bakasnepai]

Hey guys, thanks for the input. Sorry for a late reply as I kind of took the night off from trying to figure out what was going wrong.

I took the afternoon to thoroughly test what you two said. The first idea to use the dvd for the start up and repair did not work. So I actually tried to reinstall win7, but it did not show up on the list.

But as you said John, I checked the voltages and they are within tolerable levels, so i knew that my PSU is good.

Anywas, I was able to isolate the problem to my hard drives..and actually, my ssd was the problem. connected each of my HDDs individually to see if my BIOs would recognize them and it did..so when it came to my SSD, it didn't recognized it. It's a Kingston SSDNow 100V 64GB. From what I've read, there's a small percentage of this line failing?

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hey guys, thanks for the input. Sorry for a late reply as I kind of took the night off from trying to figure out what was going wrong.

I took the afternoon to thoroughly test what you two said. The first idea to use the dvd for the start up and repair did not work. So I actually tried to reinstall win7, but it did not show up on the list.

But as you said John, I checked the voltages and they are within tolerable levels, so i knew that my PSU is good.

Anywas, I was able to isolate the problem to my hard drives..and actually, my ssd was the problem. connected each of my HDDs individually to see if my BIOs would recognize them and it did..so when it came to my SSD, it didn't recognized it. It's a Kingston SSDNow 100V 64GB. From what I've read, there's a small percentage of this line failing?

I haven't had any experience with the Kingston SSD, but the reports on the INet about it seem good. If it's not detected in the BIOS, then it's either not powered up or it's defective. Could just be a random failure.

With Win-7 Ultimate if you have used the Back & Restore applet, you can just restore your data back to a new SSD or any other HDD to take its place.

 

[brentybooboo]

Hi there,



hi i have the same problem but without an ssd drive.... mine shows "non system disk or disk error" what does this mean and can i fix it...

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,



hi i have the same problem but without an ssd drive.... mine shows "non system disk or disk error" what does this mean and can i fix it...

Hello, and welcome to Tom's hardware!

Please give up all the details about your system, and problem you are having. Is this HDD an older in place HDD that all of a sudden gives you the "non system disk or disk error", or a new one that you just installed or that is being used as a replacement.

Also check in the BIOS, on the Standard CMOS page, to see if your computer BIOS recognizes this HDD as it Boots.

The "non system disk or disk error" means that the HDD does not have "OS system files" installed on it.

 

[brentybooboo]

Hello, and welcome to Tom's hardware!

Please give up all the details about your system, and problem you are having. Is this HDD an older in place HDD that all of a sudden gives you the "non system disk or disk error", or a new one that you just installed or that is being used as a replacement.

Also check in the BIOS, on the Standard CMOS page, to see if your computer BIOS recognizes this HDD as it Boots.

The "non system disk or disk error" means that the HDD does not have "OS system files" installed on it.

hi my hardrive is an 500gig sata an was running windows 7 ultimate for approx a year then all of a sudden stopped recognizing my sata connections....a technition has checked out my motherboard and seen 2 blown capacitors and says there`s the problem ...so here`s hoping...in the meantime i`m going to try a pci sata card and see if this fixes the problem
at least temporarily...

 

[brentybooboo]

the c-mos doesn`t recognize the harddrive so i`m ordering a pci sata card off trademe...which should arrive in a few days

 

[brentybooboo]

my system is a 939 motherboard Ga k8nf-9 dual athlon cpu ddr1 ram 500gig hardrive

 

[gradius2]

I had the very same problem with Kingston 64GB SSD, it just stopped working out of blue! BIOS cannot detect it at all! I tried another 100% working computer, same problem, SSD just died!

AVOID THIS CRAPPY SSD AT ANY COSTS!

 

[John_VanKirk]

I had the very same problem with Kingston 64GB SSD, it just stopped working out of blue! BIOS cannot detect it at all! I tried another 100% working computer, same problem, SSD just died!

AVOID THIS CRAPPY SSD AT ANY COSTS!

Hi there,

The trouble BrentyBooBoo had may have been MB Capacitor related voltage control, rather than his HDD. Don't know since he hasn't posted back as to the problem or soluciton found.

Well, the SSD's are still maturing, as compared to Disc platter HDD's. Win-7 uses a standard HDD driver from June 2006 which has the bugs all worked out years ago. The SSD's, their controllers, memory chips, and firmware are still evolving. OCZ Vertex-3 drives has had a lot of trouble with random BSOD's, as did Samsung 830's last year. Don't know of any Kingston specific problems, but let us know if you have ID's a Kingston specific problem.

The SSD's are certainly fast. A P55 computer I built using a Cariar Black HDD had a WIE of 5.6, compared to a P67 using an SSD with a WIE of 7.8.

The prices are now dropping, and they will continue to "evolve" over time.

My feeling is that all the SSD's are not presently as stable as the regular HDD's, so using one as a bootable OS disc makes it mandatory to image or clone the SSD to a separate platter HDD for backup safety. Any of them make you "sweat bullets" when they fail or "don't wake up", or cause random BSOD's in an otherwise stable computer.