Question Multiple secondary drives no longer detected followed by extreme slow-down ?

[bereft]

Hi! Yesterday my PC was no longer able to detect 2 of my internal HDDs (not showing up in BIOS or Windows) on startup. Neither were being used as the boot drive. I tried rebooting several times. Sometimes these drives would show up in tandem or disappear simultaneously. The rest of my machine appeared to be completely functioning as my boot drive seemed unaffected. However, today my PC is moving glacially slow. Each boot spends 10-20 minutes loading at the ASUS pre-Windows screen (sometimes performing a disk cleanup check, which will sometimes hang on my F:, an extra internal SSD which has no issues being detected), followed by a Windows "Please Wait" screen for another 5-10 minutes. When I finally get to my desktop (which is sometimes empty), trying to open anything results in hangups. Even trying to shutdown the system seems unresponsive. It's to the point where the BIOS is a bit jittery as well.

My initial guess was drive failure considering the nvme bootdrive has remained consistently connected. However it doesn't even sound like these drives attempt to start, and SMART values for all drives were clean as of a few days ago. The only recent system changes I can recall was an Nvidia driver update and the 2 most recent Windows updates.

Is this a case of 2 (or all 4) drives failing simultaneously? My BIOS version is outdated by a couple years. If BIOS incompatibility to the new Windows update is the culprit, is it safe to update BIOS with an unstable system like this? This build has been running properly for a year, the only parts older than a year are the RAM, an extra internal SSD, and one of the failing HDDs (which are all 6 years old). Could faulty RAM also be an explanation?

What I've tried:

• Removing the two recently installed Windows updates
• Swapping SATA cables for HDDs.
• Disconnecting both HDDs and booting solely off my C: drive
• Running sfc /scannow
• Reinstalling Windows 10 with the "Keep my files" option, but it only gets to 2%

Specs (forgive typos, these are from memory as I can't copy them from the malfunctioning PC):
OS: Windows 10 Home x64
Motherboard: ASUS B660-Plus D4
CPU: Intel i5-12400F
GPU: GeForce RTX 3070
PSU: EVGA 850G+
Memory: 2x8gb Vengeance LPX 3200MHZ
Storage: C: WD BlackSN850 1TB SSD (seemingly working), D: 1TB Seagate HDD (dying? 6 years old), F: 100GB Seagate SSD (seemingly working, 6 years old), G:4TB WD Red Pro (dying? purchased 8 months ago).


Apologies if this was too lengthy, any help is appreciated!

 

[JWNoctis]

Symptoms suggest issues with boot drive to the point that other drives are not being mounted, or some other issue affecting all drives. The last time anything like this happened to me, my laptop's internal HDD was dying. The other time was a dying m.2 SSD that stumbled along at <100MB/s, before dying altogether, after I pulled the data out.

As with all storage related troubles, back up everything worthwhile first. On other machines if your own won't work.

If you have an extra drive elsewhere - or maybe if you could clean out your 100GB SSD for the attempt - try installing any OS there, and see if it works.

You can also try booting from something like an Ubuntu live USB. If either doesn't work, it's probably something other than the storage. The live USB option should also allow you to back up your data to an external drive, if needed.

 

[bereft]

Symptoms suggest issues with boot drive to the point that other drives are not being mounted, or some other issue affecting all drives. The last time anything like this happened to me, my laptop's internal HDD was dying. The other time was a dying m.2 SSD that stumbled along at <100MB/s, before dying altogether, after I pulled the data out.

As with all storage related troubles, back up everything worthwhile first. On other machines if your own won't work.

If you have an extra drive elsewhere - or maybe if you could clean out your 100GB SSD for the attempt - try installing any OS there, and see if it works.

You can also try booting from something like an Ubuntu live USB. If either doesn't work, it's probably something other than the storage. The live USB option should also allow you to back up your data to an external drive, if needed.

Thanks for the reply! I tried to setup an Ubuntu live USB like you suggested (following official Ubuntu instructions), but it just got hung at the very first installation screen. Installing Windows onto the 100GB SSD may be the next route to go if I can't find an alternative. However at the moment I have no way to recover the data on it, and a clean installation would wipe that drive wouldn't it? If there's no alternative though, may have to bite the bullet on it. Any other ideas?

 

[CountMike]

Thanks for the reply! I tried to setup an Ubuntu live USB like you suggested (following official Ubuntu instructions), but it just got hung at the very first installation screen. Installing Windows onto the 100GB SSD may be the next route to go if I can't find an alternative. However at the moment I have no way to recover the data on it, and a clean installation would wipe that drive wouldn't it? If there's no alternative though, may have to bite the bullet on it. Any other ideas?

Are those failing drives properly recognized by BIOS and in Control panel? Aside from checking data cables, did you check power cables too ?
PS, Bios version should be updated thru BIOS utility inside the BIOS not thru SW or OS so you could disconnect all drives.

 

[bereft]

Are those failing drives properly recognized by BIOS and in Control panel? Aside from checking data cables, did you check power cables too ?
PS, Bios version should be updated thru BIOS utility inside the BIOS not thru SW or OS so you could disconnect all drives.

The nvme boot drive and another internal 2.5" SSD are correctly and consistently being recognized by both BIOS and Windows. My two other HDDs are not being recognized, nor are they even starting now. I've disconnected and moved around power supply cables to them, but didn't disconnect the cables connected to the PSU itself, I'll try that when I have time. If it is safe to update my BIOS via USB, I'll also do that. I was concerned another faulty part may make it risky since even my BIOS performance seemed slower than usual. Thanks for the reply and suggestions!

 

[CountMike]

The nvme boot drive and another internal 2.5" SSD are correctly and consistently being recognized by both BIOS and Windows. My two other HDDs are not being recognized, nor are they even starting now. I've disconnected and moved around power supply cables to them, but didn't disconnect the cables connected to the PSU itself, I'll try that when I have time. If it is safe to update my BIOS via USB, I'll also do that. I was concerned another faulty part may make it risky since even my BIOS performance seemed slower than usual. Thanks for the reply and suggestions!

If they are not starting (can't hear or feel motors starting) it's even them or power to them as that should happen even without data cable. BIOS would be safe to update but to be on safe side those "faulty" drives should be disconnected.
Please answer me if those HDDs are seen in BIOS at all.

 

[SkyNetRising]

What I've tried:

• Disconnecting both HDDs and booting solely off my C: drive

Storage: C: WD BlackSN850 1TB SSD (seemingly working), D: 1TB Seagate HDD (dying? 6 years old), F: 100GB Seagate SSD (seemingly working, 6 years old), G:4TB WD Red Pro (dying? purchased 8 months ago).

Disconnect problematic drives completely.
Disconnect both cables - data and power.

Does your system function normally with problematic drives disconnected?
Can you show a screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[bereft]

Disconnect problematic drives completely.
Disconnect both cables - data and power.

Does your system function normally with problematic drives disconnected?
Can you show a screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

My system is still quite choppy with both non-working drives disconnected
Here is my disk management:

https://imgur.com/a/cy5xamh

View: https://imgur.com/a/disk-management-cy5xamh

The Ubuntu volume is a connected flash drive, not a HDD. Later I should probably also remove the other functioning SSD just to fully isolate the boot drive I suppose. Thanks!

 

[bereft]

>Yesterday my PC was no longer able to detect 2 of my internal HDDs (not showing up in BIOS or Windows)

I've never seen two HDDs failing simultaneously. I doubt the drives failed, but the PSU. (A power surge can do that, but other parts will get fried before drives.)

>However, today my PC is moving glacially slow. Each boot spends 10-20 minutes loading

Expected. System is querying dead(?) drives and timing out. I'm surprised you haven't done the obvious and remove said drives from system.

>However it doesn't even sound like these drives attempt to start, and SMART values for all drives were clean as of a few days ago.

Yep, no power, not dead drives.

>My BIOS version is outdated by a couple years.

Bad time to upgrade BIOS. When you have a problem, don't complicate things by adding more potential points of failure. Deal with the drive problem first; upgrade BIOS later.

Get a SATA->USB adapter (https://amazon.com/dp/B0CYLK9QFG). Use the included AC adapter if USB bus power isn't enough to spin up drive. Plug in each HDD. Dollars to donuts they'll work.

Assuming yes, replace PSU.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did disconnect the two unresponsive drives and didn't see much change in performance (however if my PSU is on it's way out I suppose it wouldn't fix the problem). I've purchased the adapter you linked and will be replacing my PSU depending on the testing outcome 👍

 

[SkyNetRising]

My system is still quite choppy with both non-working drives disconnected

How does this "choppiness" present itself?

Check ram usage.
Show screenshot from Task Manager/Performance/Memory section.

Check cpu temperatures under load.
You can use Coretemp.

Core Temp

Core Temp is a compact, no fuss, small footprint, yet powerful program to monitor processor temperature and other vital information.

www.alcpu.com

 

[bereft]

How does this "choppiness" present itself?

Check ram usage.
Show screenshot from Task Manager/Performance/Memory section.

Check cpu temperatures under load.
You can use Coretemp.

Core Temp

Core Temp is a compact, no fuss, small footprint, yet powerful program to monitor processor temperature and other vital information.

www.alcpu.com

The choppiness is just general delay between me starting something and it actually executing (IE pressing the shutdown button in Windows takes about 10-20 seconds to actually start the shutdown process). The mouse pointer also lags around the screen rather than being fluid. A lot of Windows programs crash on start as well. I did run MemTest86 and got 4 passes over a few hours, temperatures remained consistent through that process. CoreTemp also indicated all CPU cores were below 50°C while on Desktop (I couldn't launch anything intensive to see how hot it was getting under strenuous load outside of MemTest).

Task Manager:

https://imgur.com/a/IskcFGA

I had to take a picture with my phone as Windows Explorer crashed when I tried to upload the screenshot to imgur. It is odd that FireFox is "Very High" in power usage no? I don't recall it ever doing that, so perhaps the issue is PSU related? There was also a registry process running earlier, not consuming many resources, not sure if that is significant.Thanks!

 

[SkyNetRising]

Task Manager:

Please show screenshot from Task Manager/Performance/Memory section.
You're showing Task Manager - processes section.

Also show screenshot from CPU-Z - memory and spd sections.

 

[bereft]

Please show screenshot from Task Manager/Performance/Memory section.
You're showing Task Manager - processes section.

Also show screenshot from CPU-Z - memory and spd sections.

Sorry about that. Here are the screenshots:

https://imgur.com/a/UybNccu

Thanks again.

 

[SkyNetRising]

You have insane size pagefile - 12GB.
Set it to 4GB initial, 12GB max.
Control Panel/System/Advanced System Settings/Advanced/Performance/Settings/Advanced/Virtual Memory/Change

Your 120GB SSD is pegged at 100% utilization. What are you doing with it?
If it's at 100% utilization without doing anything, then it's probably malfunctioning.
Disconnect it.

Your ram is running at 2133mhz (instead of rated 3200mhz).
Go into BIOS and enable XMP.

 

[bereft]

You have insane size pagefile - 12GB.
Set it to 4GB initial, 12GB max.
Control Panel/System/Advanced System Settings/Advanced/Performance/Settings/Advanced/Virtual Memory/Change

Your 120GB SSD is pegged at 100% utilization. What are you doing with it?
If it's at 100% utilization without doing anything, then it's probably malfunctioning.
Disconnect it.

Your ram is running at 2133mhz (instead of rated 3200mhz).
Go into BIOS and enable XMP.

Those suggestions seem to have nudged me in the right direction. The system runs smoothly, however I did get a BSOD saying "kernel_security_check_failure". I ran sfc /scannow, which said it had repaired some corrupted files and it hasn't happened since. Assuming the 120GB SSD was the culprit, I reconnected the other two HDDs however they still aren't powering on. Is this just an unlucky case of 3 storage devices dying at the same time or is another hardware component killing these maybe? I ordered a USB-SATA tool based on one of the replies from someone else, it will arrive today (5/21) and I can test if the HDDs are truly dead or just not receiving power. Thanks again.

EDIT: I went ahead and swapped my HDDs to the other SATA output on my modular PSU and they were recognized in BIOS. This is however the same output my malfunctioning SSD was on. This question may be completely redundant, but it's definitely a bad idea to run the PSU at all at this point isn't it?