Question HDD suddenly no longer detected

[ryan927]

Earlier I got a blue screen error saying "kernel data inpage error" after the restart my two secondary drives were no longer showing up. One is visible in both the device manager and the disk manager but neither are visible in the bios. In the disk manager it's showing as unavailable. Any solutions?

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, condition (original to build, new, used, refurbished)?

Include all disk drives: make, model, capacity, how full?

Open the Disk Management window and expand so all drives, partitions, etc. can be seen.

Take a screenshot and post the screenshot here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

 

[Misgar]

I have several large heaps of hard disks which have failed. That's why you keep multiple backups of all vitally important data.

Try your drives in another computer if you have one, to discount a problem with the motherboard or cables.

If they aren't recognised, reach for your backup data and treat yourself to some new disk drives. I replace mine when I see errors in Hard Disk Sentinel Pro.

As a last resort, take your drives to a data recovery agency and spend a few hundred dollars. They might be able to recover some files if you're lucky.

 

[ryan927]

Update.
After leaving my computer off for 12+ hours my drives were back and fully functional until about 20 minutes later. My 100gb hdd completely disappeared while my 1tb drive seems to be disappearing and reappearing.

Could this possibly be a psu issue? My 5v reading is quite low.

 

[ryan927]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, condition (original to build, new, used, refurbished)?

Include all disk drives: make, model, capacity, how full?

Open the Disk Management window and expand so all drives, partitions, etc. can be seen.

Take a screenshot and post the screenshot here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

Windows 10
AMD 8320
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
Asus M5A97 R2.0 board
Main SSD is Kingston SV300S37A120GB, has about 1gb free
Secondary drives are ST1000DM003, has less than 100gb free.
ST3120026AS, unsure how much is on this one, rarely use it.
PSU has no information on it, all I know is it's atleast 10 years old and has low 5v.

imgur.com/a/uS0RuOT

 

[ryan927]

My event logs are also filled with a warning that says "The IO operation at logical block address (xxxxx) for Disk 2 (PDO name: \Device\00000035) was tried."

 

[Misgar]

I'd be inclined to download a trial version of Hard Disk Sentinel and run the program, to see if any of if your drives are developing bad blocks. If they are, backup the data immediately, then replace them ASAP. I've a large pile of old Seagate drives which have expired over the years.

BIOS voltage readings may not be very accurate and should be treated as an indication only. Invest in a $10 multimeter and check the +5V rail properly. If it's lower than 4.75V, replace the PSU.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Earlier I got a blue screen error saying "kernel data inpage error" after the restart my two secondary drives were no longer showing up. One is visible in both the device manager and the disk manager but neither are visible in the bios. In the disk manager it's showing as unavailable. Any solutions?

Main SSD is Kingston SV300S37A120GB, has about 1gb free
Secondary drives are ST1000DM003, has less than 100gb free.
ST3120026AS, unsure how much is on this one, rarely use it.

Your secondary drives have died. Replace.
ST1000DM003 - is displaying wrong drive capacity in Disk Manager. Probably drive head failure. It can't read drive geometry from platters.
ST3120026AS - is Seagate 120GB SATA - a very old drive. Not being detected.

 

[ryan927]

Your secondary drives have died. Replace.
ST1000DM003 - is displaying wrong drive capacity in Disk Manager. Probably drive head failure. It can't read drive geometry from platters.
ST3120026AS - is Seagate 120GB SATA - a very old drive. Not being detected.

What I find odd is that if I leave the power off for a few hours I can view everything on the ST100DM003 drive until it kicks me out a few minutes later. Is this just what happens when a drive starts to die?

 

[ryan927]

I'd be inclined to download a trial version of Hard Disk Sentinel and run the program, to see if any of if your drives are developing bad blocks. If they are, backup the data immediately, then replace them ASAP. I've a large pile of old Seagate drives which have expired over the years.

BIOS voltage readings may not be very accurate and should be treated as an indication only. Invest in a $10 multimeter and check the +5V rail properly. If it's lower than 4.75V, replace the PSU.

Any recommendations for a drive below $150CAD? I was thinking about getting another seagate barracuda but I've heard they're really unreliable.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Any recommendations for a drive below $150CAD? I was thinking about getting another seagate barracuda but I've heard they're really unreliable.

Seagate barracudas are all SMR drives with inconsistent write performance.
Avoid.

Other manufacturers also make SMR drives. So you have to check specifications carefully.

 

[Ralston18]

@ryan927

"What I find odd is that if I leave the power off for a few hours I can view everything on the ST100DM003 drive until it kicks me out a few minutes later. Is this just what happens when a drive starts to die?"

Could also be heat related. Okay when cool, once warmed up then the problems appear. Eventually the drive will not even get that far....

Seconding @SkyNetRising

 

[ryan927]

I'd be inclined to download a trial version of Hard Disk Sentinel and run the program, to see if any of if your drives are developing bad blocks. If they are, backup the data immediately, then replace them ASAP. I've a large pile of old Seagate drives which have expired over the years.

BIOS voltage readings may not be very accurate and should be treated as an indication only. Invest in a $10 multimeter and check the +5V rail properly. If it's lower than 4.75V, replace the PSU.

Hdsentinal showed 22% life left, 60 some days until complete failure, 103 bad sectors, with thousands of communication errors. I see there's an option to fix the bad sectors but I'm assuming the drives just toast.

 

[DSzymborski]

Yup, you're not going to practically fix all of that, and even if you somehow managed to do that, the drives are so old and problematic that you could never trust them again anyway.

The situation with the PSU really reinforces the idea that the drives are dead. I'm not sure why this wasn't dealt with years ago; a generic mystery PSU should *never* be in a system with a discrete GPU that requires supplementary power.

Having your main drive only with a GB free is yet another huge red flag here, especially if it's an SSD. An SSD should have at a *bare minimum* 10% of its capacity free for the drive to be able to deal with aging.

Get all these drives and the PSU out of the system. These failing hard drives shouldn't even be turned on at this point given the hardware situation, especially if there's data on there you really need to get off that isn't properly backed up. Replace the PSU with something appropriate. It doesn't need to be anything fancy or expensive, but something like a Corsair CX made in the last decade would be an acceptable budget option.

Then format the SSD and make a clean install of Windows on it, this time not cramming it up like trying to move a piano with a motorcycle.

I'm almost afraid to ask given the poor maintenance of this PC but it's unavoidable: what is the backup situation with your important files? If, as I fear, the data is not baked up properly elsewhere, then this is even messier. After properly installing Windows on the SSD *and* replacing the PSU and replacing the hard drives, I'd try to put the old hard drives individually in an enclosure and attempt to recover them *to* the fixed PC.

If you need data off these drives and options like Recuva and DMDE don't work for you, then there's not much else you'll be able to do on your own. But for god's sake, don't have these drives powered up at all until you're actually trying to actively recover the data and you've squared away your other hardware problems; even with a competent PSU, they're far enough gone that every minute they're running makes it less likely you'll ever recover anything. Because after software solutions, you're looking at a data recovery lab and that means the price of a competent PSU with a zero added at the end (and possibly more).