Hard Drive not detected sometimes?

[clairvoux]

Hey there.

So I have 5 HDDs conected to my motherboard, and recently one of them started to sometimes not being detected by either the BIOS or Windows. Restarting the PC does not solve the problem, but turning the PC off, waiting afew seconds, and turning it on solves the problem.

This has only happened twice during the course of 2 weeks, but I'm already worried about my data, and I'd like to know what is happening before it's too late.

The drive is an 8 year old 640GB WD drive. I don't know much more about it, but I can check if anyone needs to know. Never had a problem with it, and has never lost any speed.
The motherboard is an Asus X99-S and it's only 3 months old, so I'm hoping it's not failing already.
The PSU is a Seasonic S12G 650W, 3 moths old too.

 

[R_1]

first thing to do is back up the sucker PDQ. Next is change the SATA cable. you probably have a spare, and takes just a sec. then I would suggest running western digital diagnostics on the drive ( extended test ).

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, clairvoux!

Sadly every drive's life comes to an end at some point. You can test it, to see if this is the case with your HDD, but before that I'd recommend that you backup all of the important data which you might have on that drive, just to be on the safe side. When you're done, go ahead and download DLG (Data Lifeguard Diagnostics) and run both tests (Quick and Extended), to see what's the situation with the drive. Here's how to do that: How to test a drive for problems using Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows. You might also want to try the HDD with a different SATA port and different cables, or even better - different computer, to see if the issue reoccurs.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[clairvoux]

Thanks for all your answers.

The data is being backed up. It should be done in an hour or so. After that I'll run the DLG test. SMART says everything is fine.

I know changing the cable should have been the first thing to do, but I'm having a hard time believing the cable is faulty or insecure, since it came with the motherboard, so it's new and it also has clips to secure it in place. If the DLG test finds any errors, I'll change the cable or SATA port.

Also I forgot to mention it before, but I'm running the CPU overclocked, if that changes anything. So a few voltages and BIOS options have been tweaked.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well sometimes a cable can be faulty even if it's brand new (just as any other device there is). It just happens, hopefully this is the case with your drive as well. You have no idea how often I've heard about faulty USB or SATA cable, causing similar problems.
The overclocked CPU or and the settings tweaks should not affect the drive at all (at least in most cases as I've seen a lot of weird stuff), especially if it's just the one HDD and none of the others. There are only calculators which could help you find out roughly how much power does your system consume, but I think that your PSU should be sufficient enough even with 5 HDDs connected to your mobo.

Please keep us posted

 

[clairvoux]

So the drive successfully passed both the quick test and the extended test. So at least the drive itself seems to have no problems. I guess we can be fairly certain that the drive isn't dying then?

After that I checked both ends of the cable, just in case, and they were correctly plugged in.
I did notice that the drive, along with another one is connected to a SATA express connector, instead of a SATA 3 connector. I just plugged them there because they were easier to reach, but i believe it shouldn't be a problem? Anyway, I replaced the cable too.

It's hard to know for sure if replacing the cable actually solves anything because the drive hasn't been detected only twice since I built the computer, but if it happens again what could it be? Could it be that the mnotherboard hasn't got enough time to detect all of the components?

When I built the computer I accidentally placed the GPU on the second PCI slot, and more often than not when I turned on the PC, the GPU wouldn't be detected, or it would take a long time to POST. Could something similar be happening with the drive?


As for the PSU, unless it's defective, i'm sure it is more than enough for my system, so a lack of power can't be the problem, I guess.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well it seems like the drive is in good condition after all, which is great news. Either way, you should keep an eye on it, just in case.

I can't really be sure what could be causing this. Did you just use different cables or another port as well? It might be a motherboard issue of some sort which might be fixable by a BIOS/UEFI update or reset.

So let's hope this doesn't happen again. And remember to keep your important files backed up, in case something goes wrong unexpectedly.