Question Boot failure: C drive & win 10 missing, 2nd HD reports empty

[actionduck]

Hi everyone. I have run into a new problem that is going beyond my abilities to overcome, so it's time to open this up for advice.
I have an older system that is running a Phenom 2 chip on an ASUS M4A88T-M MB and two HDs. I know the MB was having issues already, as the audio appears shot (windows had suddenly stopped acknowledging any speakers/earphone were connect--if I wanted audio, I had to use a bluetooth dongle, which was getting spotty on working). Otherwise, everything else was working okay, until this evening.
What I observed was the system rebooted, and stopped on the bluescreen, saying it needed recovery and error code 0xc000000e. When I reboot, it gives me a blinking cursor for about 90 seconds, then a message that it is loading the asus gateway, before it finally gets to the ASUS bios screen. After connecting a USB recovery drive, the auto fix does nothing, and the bootrec fix route tells me that zero windows installations are present, and that I have one drive present that has 0 MB of data on it (neither of my drives were empty).
The only other notes I have on this are that, when I checked the screen messages while waiting on the BIOS to load and setup to run, it is correctly acknowledging my CPU, RAM, and DVD drive, and one SATA drive.
If anyone has any guidance on where I can go from here to restore my system, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I have an older system that is running a Phenom 2 chip on an ASUS M4A88T-M MB and two HDs.
BIOS to load and setup to run, it is correctly acknowledging my CPU, RAM, and DVD drive, and one SATA drive.

Then one of your drives has failed.

 

[dwd999]

Hi everyone. I have run into a new problem that is going beyond my abilities to overcome, so it's time to open this up for advice.
I have an older system that is running a Phenom 2 chip on an ASUS M4A88T-M MB and two HDs. I know the MB was having issues already, as the audio appears shot (windows had suddenly stopped acknowledging any speakers/earphone were connect--if I wanted audio, I had to use a bluetooth dongle, which was getting spotty on working). Otherwise, everything else was working okay, until this evening.
What I observed was the system rebooted, and stopped on the bluescreen, saying it needed recovery and error code 0xc000000e. When I reboot, it gives me a blinking cursor for about 90 seconds, then a message that it is loading the asus gateway, before it finally gets to the ASUS bios screen. After connecting a USB recovery drive, the auto fix does nothing, and the bootrec fix route tells me that zero windows installations are present, and that I have one drive present that has 0 MB of data on it (neither of my drives were empty).
The only other notes I have on this are that, when I checked the screen messages while waiting on the BIOS to load and setup to run, it is correctly acknowledging my CPU, RAM, and DVD drive, and one SATA drive.
If anyone has any guidance on where I can go from here to restore my system, that would be greatly appreciated.

Since you have the ability to boot from a usb drive the easiest thing to do would be to boot from a usb containing a linux distro and see what its Disk and File Manager apps say about your hdds. Otherwise you'll have to connect the hdds to some other computer or external hub to see if they are functional and if you can rescue your data from them.

 

[actionduck]

I do recognize that HD failure is highly likely. Even though it is maybe a year old, drives of any age can go turtle on us. What I am wonder is if the IDE controller has given out, which would prevent access the HD. The big clue to me that it may not be the HD causing this is how slow the system taking to load up, just to get to the initial splash screen. We are talking about two or three minutes, even if I am just trying to access the BIOS.
I have not tried running linux yet outside of a virtual learning environment, so I may keep that in mind. Otherwise, I might see if I can dig up an old MB that I know is hiding somewhere in this part of the house.
The only other option is hijacking the wife's computer, to test my HD. She will not be happy about that idea, but it is better than forking out $$$ for parts I don't need yet.

 

[actionduck]

Hhhmmm...I just ran chkdsk from the usb. Of course, this is only looking at the one drive that the system acknowledges. It tells me that there is 3086kb in total disk space, and this is a 1TB drive. Otherwise, it is reporting the volume is in use by another process.

 

[SkyNetRising]

It tells me that there is 3086kb in total disk space, and this is a 1TB drive.

Probable drive head failure.
Drive can't read geometry information from platters.

What I am wonder is if the IDE controller has given out, which would prevent access the HD. The big clue to me that it may not be the HD causing this is how slow the system taking to load up, just to get to the initial splash screen. We are talking about two or three minutes, even if I am just trying to access the BIOS.

Failed drive being connected can cause delay in hardware detection during post.

 

[actionduck]

Probable drive head failure.
Drive can't read geometry information from platters.


Failed drive being connected can cause delay in hardware detection during post.

But if this is the faulty drive, why would 2nd drive disappear? Could both drives die simultaneously? Yeah, I have to assume that dual drive failure is not a zero percent chance.

 

[actionduck]

New development--
Before my computer restarted and refused to do anything, I had noticed it was pending a windows update. As I could not get anywhere last night, out of frustration, I shut down the system. 12 hrs later, just to amuse myself (expecting the same to occur), I was surprised to see the machine booted right up (showing both SATA drives in the load screen) and finished the update. When that was done and i could log into my profile, I fired up chkdsk, and it found no significant errors. I am even writing this post from the problematic system.
Now I am back to my original conclusion, where I suspect either my MB or primary HD is giving off warning of an impending crash. So, while I am working on a new system image, anybody have other possibilities of where the malfunction lies.