Question Disappearing SSD Drives Solution

[DesertRanger111]

Hi all, hope this helps some folks, I have followed every single suggestion from updating windows, changing power supplies, changing SATA cables, upgrading bios, disabling fast start, changing POST time, etc etc etc ad infinitum....

None of that worked. BUT, I was finally able to fix the disappearing SATA 3 SSD issue for my build that has repeatedly fixed the problem everything it happens now.

I have an ASUS X570-E, a 1TB 980 PRO - (C, and 2TB 980 PRO (F in NVMe slots, then I have 2 1TB 860 EVOs (E and G drives), and 2 1TB 870 EVOs (D and J drives) in SATA 3 ports.

Problem:
Randomly, I will notice that my E, G, and J drives will disappear. I have even gone so far to get SATA 3 to USB 3.0 cables and they "magically" reappear.
So, something is going on as far as the ports being used turn themselves off or something.

Solution: This has worked for me 100% of the time even if it's a pain in the butt. I just unplug the drives that have disappeared from their SATA and Power cables, plug them back in, and they're all "magically" back. I have tried everything that has been tried in other threads and this is the only thing that has actually worked. But it does. If doing all of them at once doesn't do it, unplug them and plug them back in and restart one at a time. They all come back. If this makes someone think of a solution about what's going on that might work better than manually disconnecting and reconnecting the drives there are a lot of folks I think would be happy for that info, but in the interim that's what has worked for me.

Lastly, I have a piece of tape on each drive so that I know what Drive Letter each is so I don't accidentally unplug the D drive which never seems to disappear.

Hope this helps some people.

 

[dwd999]

Hi all, hope this helps some folks, I have followed every single suggestion from updating windows, changing power supplies, changing SATA cables, upgrading bios, disabling fast start, changing POST time, etc etc etc ad infinitum....

None of that worked. BUT, I was finally able to fix the disappearing SATA 3 SSD issue for my build that has repeatedly fixed the problem everything it happens now.

I have an ASUS X570-E, a 1TB 980 PRO - (C, and 2TB 980 PRO (F in NVMe slots, then I have 2 1TB 860 EVOs (E and G drives), and 2 1TB 870 EVOs (D and J drives) in SATA 3 ports.

Problem:
Randomly, I will notice that my E, G, and J drives will disappear. I have even gone so far to get SATA 3 to USB 3.0 cables and they "magically" reappear.
So, something is going on as far as the ports being used turn themselves off or something.

Solution: This has worked for me 100% of the time even if it's a pain in the butt. I just unplug the drives that have disappeared from their SATA and Power cables, plug them back in, and they're all "magically" back. I have tried everything that has been tried in other threads and this is the only thing that has actually worked. But it does. If doing all of them at once doesn't do it, unplug them and plug them back in and restart one at a time. They all come back. If this makes someone think of a solution about what's going on that might work better than manually disconnecting and reconnecting the drives there are a lot of folks I think would be happy for that info, but in the interim that's what has worked for me.

Lastly, I have a piece of tape on each drive so that I know what Drive Letter each is so I don't accidentally unplug the D drive which never seems to disappear.

Hope this helps some people.

Just out of curiosity you could look through your computer's BIOS sometime and see what the settings are for the SATA ports. Since you're able to unplug and plug drives back in it sounds like the hot plug option is turned on for those ports. Maybe if hot plug was disabled they wouldn't disconnect; maybe that's what's different about drive D; if hot plug is turned off for that one.

 

[DesertRanger111]

Just out of curiosity you could look through your computer's BIOS sometime and see what the settings are for the SATA ports. Since you're able to unplug and plug drives back in it sounds like the hot plug option is turned on for those ports. Maybe if hot plug was disabled they wouldn't disconnect; maybe that's what's different about drive D; if hot plug is turned off for that one.

I can confirm that hot plug is turned off for all of the drives. I've combed through everything in BIOS I can think of and don't think it is anything there. I believe it is something on the actual hardware side but I don't know. I'm curious if anyone using another producers X-570 mobos or maybe even different models of the X-570 have similar issues. Other thing I wondered, but the paths on the board suggest this should be impossible, is if having both M2 slots in use has something to do with it even though this was supposed to no longer be an issue on this board. Also, didn't think to mention it before but mine is an AM4 socket board. Not sure that would have any impact but should have included that in the initial post I suppose.