Question Hard Drive disappearance ?

[Kisianik]

Hello
I have an old, about 10 years, PC, no upgrade yet, please do not even suggest. 4790K, GTX 970, 850W EVGA PSU.
Now Drives. Win 8.1 on Samsung 850 PRO 500GB SSD and just installed Win10 on Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SSD, also WD RED PRO 12TB x2, Seagate EXOS x16 16TB, WD GOLD 2TB+8TB+10TB. I had this setup without 870 EVO for about 6-8years and no problems on Win 8.1.
Due to some game (Ubisoft Far Cry 5 and 6) requirements for WIn10 I decided to upgrade to enjoy until Win10 is no more.
Here comes the WEIRD issue/problem.

My PC case has 6 HDD slots and 2 SSD slots (Motherboard with 8 SATAs). Each PSU power cable has 3 connectors. The one I connected EVO is also provides power to 850 PRO and DVD Drive. Once I attached 870 EVO to power only, without SATA cable and booted up, one WD RED PRO disappeared. I pulled it out and placed in external HDD enclosure - working like a charm, no issues. Put it back, and NOTHING. Even BIOS doesn't see it.. Power cable for this HDD is also feeds 2 other hard drives, which are working perfectly.
What could it be?

Any ideas/suggestions appreciated

 

[Lutfij]

850W EVGA PSU
EVGA is the brand of the unit, while 850W is the advertised wattage of the unit. What is the model of the unit and it's age?

What is the make and model of your motherboard? What BIOS version are you currently on for your motherboard?

 

[Misgar]

Once I attached 870 EVO to power only, without SATA cable and booted up, one WD RED PRO disappeared. I pulled it out and placed in external HDD enclosure - working like a charm, no issues. Put it back, and NOTHING. Even BIOS doesn't see it.. Power cable for this HDD is also feeds 2 other hard drives, which are working perfectly.

It's not entirely clear if all three SATA power connectors on that lead are still working. Have you tried fitting the hard disk to the other two SATA power outlets on the same 3-way lead, or is it some strange interaction between the WD Red Pro and the 870EVO?

Alternatively, do any of your NAS/RAID/Enterprise-class drives need the 3.3V pin 3 mod to enable them? Seems unlikely if they worked in the past, but you may have rearranged the hard disks and used different SATA power connectors. Masking off pin 3 on the SATA/SAS data connector is often known as the "Kapton tape mod".

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Fix-the-33V-Pin-Issue-in-White-Label-Disks-/

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/84038-so-your-new-sas-or-sata-drive-wont-start-spin-up/

 

[Kisianik]

EVGA SuperNOVA 850 GA, 80 Plus Gold 850W
I think this is mine

That power lead has 3 connectors with Seagate and RED PRO x2, middle connector failed. Seagate on the first and RED PRO on the third are still working.
New SSD was added to entirely different lead.
It seems like power overdraw, thinking critically. It is a snake pit there with cables as I piggyback some HDD power cables to feed some fans, so definitely power overdraw.
I guess the best solution is to put this drive in external enclosure, lucky me I have 2 HDD enclosures. Otherwise I am risking triggering more issues from more than 10 years old PSU, very good one, but very old one.
Am I thinking logically?

 

[Misgar]

so definitely power overdraw.

I'm not convinced you're experiencing "power overdraw". If your nominal 850W PSU is still working reasonably well, it should be more than capable of supporting half a dozen hard drives.

I have several servers running 8 or 10 hard disks, either SAS or SATA. Even a 650W PSU is more than adequate. I budget 10W per drive, but most hard disks use 6 to 8W after an initial switch on surge as the motor spins up the platters.

None-the-less with a PSU that's more than 10 years old, if you don't have at least two other copies of your files, I'd be inclined to replace your PSU before it succumbs to old age. The electrolytics will eventually dry out and then "let go".

I had an old PSU die with a loud explosion. I've no idea to the age. It was in a second hand system bought on eBay for the full size ATX computer case. No damage done to the spare mobo or disks, but it could have been more serious.

A Corsair RM850 has eight SATA power connectors. Lower power PSUs tend not to come with enough SATA connectors for my RAID-Z2 ZFS systems.

I'm not a fan of external hard disk enclosures, especally WD Elements or Seagate USB3 drives, despite having 12 of these drives. The close fitting plastic cases with no cooling fans mean the hard disks inside hit 55C. There's also the vagaries of USB3 connections and the danger of knocking an external drive case and causing a head crash.