HDD not being recognized

[NateBeast]

I have built my PC and I have had it for a couple of months now, probably 4-5. Just recently, about 2 weeks ago, my HDD has been disappearing, and the only drive that shows up is my SSD with Windows installed. I sign in to my PC, and it tells me D:/Desktop is unavailable. It says this because I have transferred my desktop folder onto my HDD. It normally gets fixed by turning off my PC, unplugging both drives, turning on my PC, turning it off again, plugging in the drives and turning it back on. Over the weekend, I left and I got back today, and I discovered that the PC was just in sleep mode the entire time, because Windows was asking me if I wanted to save a notepad document. 🙁 I restarted my PC and it said that the D drive was unavailable. I did the steps I mentioned above but it is still not working. I left it for a bit, tried again a couple times, and now when I login to Windows 10, it shows me a black screen forever. I really have imaportant files on my HDD and SSD, and I really need access to my PC tomorrow, so if anybody has any suggestions they would be great! Thanks

 

[Tanyac]

It sounds like your drive is dying. Is it a Seagate drive by any chance? This is common for Seagate drives.
If you can unplug it and get it running I would back up everything to an external drive immediately. If you don't have an external drive, or at least a thumb drive, then I would recommend investing in one.
Maybe try a different sata port (I'm grabbing at straws here)

You might also try some bootable recovery options like Hirens... More info: http://www.gfi.com/blog/top-5-free-rescue-discs-for-your-sys-admin-toolkit/

Unless you moved it, your desktop is located at c:\users\<username>\desktop, where <username> is the account name you are using on your PC.

If you moved your desktop folder, and Windows can't access it that might be why you are getting a black screen.

You could also try booting to safe mode and see if you can access the drive.

If you can just get the drive working for one occasion and copy off your files, at least you won't lose much, if anything.

You should be doing backups every day!

 

[NateBeast]

Yes, it is a Seagate drive. Why would the drive be dying after only 4-5 months? I will try a different SATA port, and if that doesn't work, I will plug the drive into my other PC, and try to copy over my files. Thanks for the help

EDIT: I tried a different SATA port, and the drive showed up in the BIOS. I booted Windows but the drive is not showing up, even in Disk Management.

EDIT 2: I plugged the drive into my other PC and it is working fine. Any suggestions on how to easily transfer my data?

 

[Tanyac]

Seagates Desktop drives (Baracuda), drives are poor quality drives. I lost 6 of them in the space of 4 months, all within warranty period, which is why I only buy NAS drives now.

Baracuda's are intended for light use - 9-5 week days scenarios. NAS drives are intended for 24/7 use.

The 3TB drives had a 40% failure rate according to research.

In recognition of the declining quality of their drives Seagate shortened all of their warranty periods.

The WD Drives tend to have mechanical failures, like head crashes whereas the Seagate drives have controller failures.

Copy the data to an external USB drive would be easiest.
I assume when you say "Data" you mean things like documents, photos, spreadsheets and the like, not installed programs.

Put a new drive in the original PC and copy the data onto it from the USB drive.

 

[NateBeast]

I have copied over all of my data but it is still not recognized in my other PC. It is currently running a Full Format instead of just a Quick Format, so I will let you know what happens.

 

[Magnvs]

Yes, it is a Seagate drive. Why would the drive be dying after only 4-5 months? I will try a different SATA port, and if that doesn't work, I will plug the drive into my other PC, and try to copy over my files. Thanks for the help

EDIT: I tried a different SATA port, and the drive showed up in the BIOS. I booted Windows but the drive is not showing up, even in Disk Management.

EDIT 2: I plugged the drive into my other PC and it is working fine. Any suggestions on how to easily transfer my data?

Seagates Desktop drives (Baracuda), drives are poor quality drives. I lost 6 of them in the space of 4 months, all within warranty period, which is why I only buy NAS drives now.

Baracuda's are intended for light use - 9-5 week days scenarios. NAS drives are intended for 24/7 use.

The 3TB drives had a 40% failure rate according to research.

In recognition of the declining quality of their drives Seagate shortened all of their warranty periods.

The WD Drives tend to have mechanical failures, like head crashes whereas the Seagate drives have controller failures.

Copy the data to an external USB drive would be easiest.
I assume when you say "Data" you mean things like documents, photos, spreadsheets and the like, not installed programs.

Put a new drive in the original PC and copy the data onto it from the USB drive.

I'm not sure what you mean by NAS Drives, but I assume you mean WD Red drives, which are slower than Black performance drives.
Seagate had high failure rates in a report made by a cloud service provider, usually related to hot operating environments.

If the drive works in the other computer, simply copy the data onto any other available drive.
After securing the data, try it in your main system again, if it still doesn't work, try with another disk to eliminate a motherboard issue.
If the second drive works, connect dodgy drive to second computer and run a diagnosis tool, then just RMA it.
Pay no heed to people saying Barracudas are likely to fail, I have dozens of them in various computers and have rarely had any issues, but any drive can fail at any time so you should always make sure to have backups somewhere.

 

[Tanyac]

NAS Drives are the Seagate equivalent of WD Red drives. Both are allegedly manufactured for 24/7 operation.

Yes, the Red and NAS drives run at 5900 RPM, hence the added endurance.

It depends on your budget. If noise is not an issue, the 7200 RPM Enterprise drives have better performance and durability.

For me, I run two servers each with 10 x 4TB NAS drives each. I like the NAS/Red drives running at 5900 RPM because in my home, the added noise would be very annoying.

These days, you get what you pay for. Go cheap, don't expect things to last.

There seems to have been a significant decline in durability in 2013. I have a 4 x 2TB barracuda drives in my son's computers. They were installed in 2012. They are still going strong. But their computers are used for about6 hours per day. and are only lightly used.