Question Disappearing Hard Drive

[adikplayers]

I'll try to be as detailed as possible. I have a problem with my hard drive. It suddenly disappears in My Computer when I am booted to Windows. The drive doesn't even show from the BIOS startup. It only reappears when I completely shutdown my PC ( completely meaning turning off the AVR mains). But after turning it back on, it then dissappears after an average of 10 to 20 minutes.

Tried some troubleshooting mentioned below but the problem still persists

1. Tried to check in disk management in order to manually add it again but the faulty drive wasn't there
2. Replaced the SATA cable from my other PC
3. Run chkdsk but the drive disappears even before chkdsk completes.
4. Run error checking but disappears even before it completes. I do have to note that I hear occasional clicks from the HDD while this was happening.
5. Harddisk Sentinel indicates that the drive is still 100/100 in health and performance.

Additional info:
1. I do have to mention, prior to this problem I got a BSOD about Kernel index something.

2. Everything was normal in my PC 2 weeks ago. Problems seem to arise when I dusted off my PC with a blower a week ago. From there I get frequent BSOD and unresponsive hangs. Then voila, my HDD disappears.


Tried to google for solutions but I'm stumped. I can't seem to understand what is going on.

Luckily I was able to backup some important files as it didn't disappear for a record of 5 hours last night.

I need your help if there are any work-arounds I can do here. My options now are currently limited especially that there is a quarantine and I cannot purchase a new HDD at the moment.

Thanks and cheers
Al

 

[adikplayers]

Hi adikplayers

The next time is doesn't appear, right click "my computer" and go to "manage". Once the Window opens, go under the storage tab, and click disk managment. Also, the next time it doesn't show up, go to control panel, system, hardware tab, and click device manager. In device manager, go under disk drives. Does it show up there? Is there anything in an error state in device manager (usually shown with a yellow exclamation mark near it).

Hello. Thanks for your reply. It doesn't appear in both disk management and device manager.

 

[helpstar]

Which motherboard is it?

Did you try a different sata power cable as well?
Did you connect the sata data cable to different sata ports?

Try the HDD in your other PC

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hi, can you also check the drive with the diagnostic software of the manufacturer?