[SOLVED] Disappearing Harddrive?

[tweak4]

I've got an annoying issue that's been going on for a while and I haven't been able to solve. My computer has a hard drive that keeps disappearing.
It's a i7-4770K-based desktop running Windows 10. There are multiple hard drives installed- an SSD for Windows/System files, a WD 1TB for user files/documents, a Samsung 2TB for games, and finally a Toshiba MD04ACA400 4TB for movies/music/photos.
For some reason, this last drive will occasionally just disappear from the system- it won't show in "This PC", or the Device/Disk Manager, but if I have Device Manager scan for changes, it will usually reappear after about 30 seconds. None of the data on the drive appears to ever get corrupted, and everything in CrystalDiskInfo would imply that the drive is in good shape. It's almost like the drive is just being put to sleep and failing to wake up sometimes.
The other annoying part is that it doesn't happen consistently- the computer runs just about all the time, since it serves as a Plex server for our house, but the drive only seems to disappear once, maybe twice in a given week. We usually only find out when the kids fire up a Plex client but the server suddenly reports every file as "unavailable".

Everything on the drive is backed up safely, so it's not a huge deal if the drive does die suddenly, but it's been doing this disappearing act for like a year now, so I really don't think this is signaling its immanent failure or anything like people have suggested before.

Any ideas?

 

[jimmysmitty]

While programs like CrystalDisk can show possible issues with the platters or heads reading data it might not show an issue with the HDDs PCB board. I have had a few that the board went out.

One question, is this plugged into the same SATA port set as the others (most board have two sets, one set from Intel normally 4 or 6 and another from someone like ASMedia normally 2 and are normally color coded)?

 

[tweak4]

One question, is this plugged into the same SATA port set as the others (most board have two sets, one set from Intel normally 4 or 6 and another from someone like ASMedia normally 2 and are normally color coded)?

I'd have to check- I built the system years ago and it's been a year or two since making any changes to the drive configuration. However, I'd be willing to wager that either all of the drives are plugged into the Intel controller ports, or that the "system" drives are in Intel and the two "storage" drives are in the ASMedia (The MB is an Asus Z87 Pro, so Intel and ASM was a good guess!). Either way, I'm reasonably sure the drive in question is not the only one on its particular set of ports.
I could always try swapping the drive to the other controller and seeing if that makes a difference- the only problem is that since it doesn't happen with any real regularity, it could be a couple of weeks before I could say for sure that the problem is solved...

 

[jimmysmitty]

I would say try a different controller, I normally use only the Intel controller unless they are all filled as they tend to perform better than others. The Intel was an easy one based on your CPU. ASMedia was a guess but every Asus board has ASMedia since its a branch of Asus that makes controllers and other peripherals for their board.

Other than the drives PCB board going bad it could also be the SATA cable or port. I would first try a different port/controller then if it happens again swap the cable. If it happens again then we will have eliminated those as possibilities and leave ony a few, one being the HDDs PCB or maybe just the SATA port on the HDD itself.

Another thing you could do is go into the power settings and set your HDD to not go into sleep mode.