[SOLVED] Internal Hard Drive keeps Disconnecting/Disappearing

[spazbandicoot]

Hi there,

I picked up a second-hand 2012 500GB Seagate ST3500312CS SATA Hard Drive yesterday for £7 at a local CeX shop.
I've set it up to my PC, re-formatted it, done some checks on it and it seemed to be a healthy drive. No weird noises. Not mishandled.
I can copy and transfer files to and from it without any visible problems, speeds around 100MB/s.

All of this seems to be fine. However, after about 10 minutes, no matter if it's active or not, the drive completely disappears from the PC. Gone from File Explorer, gone from Disk Management, nowhere to be seen.
I restarted my PC and went into the BIOS and saw that the drive was detected. I then logged into windows and opened File Explorer to discover that the Drive had re-appeared.
Did some more tests, nothing seemed out of the usual until the drive disappeared again after another 10 minutes.

I had a look online to see why this could be happening and saw some post that talked about a drive not having enough power. I had 3 total drives plugged into the same cable at that time via a 6-Pin Male to 4x SATA Power cable.
I plugged the Drive into another 6-Pin Male to 4x SATA Power cable this time without any other drives plugged into it and the same results still occurred - the drive worked for 10 minutes, then vanished.
Checked the drive's temperature in OpenHardwareMonitor before it was gone again, it was at a steady 31/32.c and never exceeded.

I have no idea what's going on.

Could the drive be faulty? I'm not expecting much since it's a bit old and was pretty cheap but I don't want to conclude that it's broken without knowing what's going on first - I'm no Hard Drive expert.

Specs:

CPU: Intel i5-4690k @ 4.2Ghz

RAM: 24GB DDR3 HyperX Fury @ 1.6GHz

Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Anniversary

GPU: GIGABYTE 1060 6GB G1 V2

SSD: 500GB Crucial MX500

HDD 1: 1TB Toshiba DT01ACA100

HDD 2: 500GB Seagate ST3500312CS (The Drive in question)


Any help is appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[Grobe]

Will it disappear after 1+ minutes if you make any disk activity (copy file to it) every fifth minute after it starts up?

 

[spazbandicoot]

I'm not sure I understand.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

What bios are you running?

 

[spazbandicoot]

What bios are you running?

I imagine the 'UEFI Version' is the BIOS version?

"Z97 Anniversary P2.00"

 

[Grobe]

I'm not sure I understand.

If you copy something to the disc after like 5 minutes - does it still disconnects after ten ?

 

[popatim]

See if there is a firmware update available for the drive
https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html?userPreferredLocaleCookie=en_US_

 

[spazbandicoot]

See if there is a firmware update available for the drive
https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html?userPreferredLocaleCookie=en_US_

No firmware updates available according to the site.

 

[spazbandicoot]

If you copy something to the disc after like 5 minutes - does it still disconnects after ten ?

So, contrary to an original statement in this post, I think it does disconnect only when I transfer something then let 5-10 minutes pass - not disconnecting after "10 minutes, no matter if it's active or not" .
It seems to me that ever since my last reboot, the drive has stayed connected as I haven't transferred or opened any files on it.

 

[popatim]

That is STRANGE! Can you return it for another?

 

[spazbandicoot]

That is STRANGE! Can you return it for another?

They claim it comes with a 2 year warranty so if I really need to return it/swap it for another one of their Hard Drives, I can as I still have the receipt.

Edit: I have another SATA Data cable on hand so I will try that before returning the Drive. I will also try CrystalDiskInfo.

 

[spazbandicoot]

Update: The drive is dying.

I will return it to CeX and see if I can swap it out for a different drive.

Edit/Update: Got an identical replacement drive that is in good health.

Thanks to everyone that replied.

 

[popatim]

Thanks for the Update!!