Question Drives sometimes not recognized after power outage.

[theacorstudios]

The PC I use is my first build, worked perfectly for a couple years now, but recently, after a power outage (which i think was caused by a transformer explosion based on the loud bang outside), Half of the time when I turn my PC on it won't recognize my boot drive, and most of the time when it does recognize it, it will fail to recognize one of the other two drives, only ocassionally will it detect all 3. I've changed the cables to different SATA ports (some which were unused before then), checked boot order on BIOS to make sure it didn't change somehow, and ran diagnostics on the drives with window's only answer being that there's nothing wrong with the drives! The PC has endured many similarly violent outages in the past without breaking a sweat, and I'm not sure about what I should do next. What else should I try in order to solve the issue? Could it be an issue with another component?

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Motherboard most likely. Psu too

 

[RodneyDawn]

possibly a controller board on an otherwise mechanically sound harddrive being damaged, but that would only affect the one drive...unless they were all similarly damaged. Similarly a weak drive motor can sometimes not spin up the first try and may do so on subsequent tries but again that would only affect one drive. this sounds like a psu or motherboard issue most likely

 

[theacorstudios]

possibly a controller board on an otherwise mechanically sound harddrive being damaged, but that would only affect the one drive...unless they were all similarly damaged. Similarly a weak drive motor can sometimes not spin up the first try and may do so on subsequent tries but again that would only affect one drive. this sounds like a psu or motherboard issue most likely

After some fixing, I can somewhat consistently get my pc to detect all my drives, though it sometimes doesn't anyways. After noticing what might be a very slight burning smell I'm thinking it might actually be the motherboard, since after texting mu PSU it worked just fine.
I'm working on getting some SATA cables from some friends and test them out, if that doesn't work I'll just have to assume it's the board. In which case, is there any precautions I should take when replacing it? I'm planning on getting the exact same model, or is it better to upgrade while I'm at it?