Question my hdd randomly disappears while windows is active

[reznov42]

i have a hdd which i use for extra storage on my pc (no os) and i disconnected it from my main pc to copy files from another pc and now that i have put it back in my main pc it shows up in windows just fine and i can use the files on it but randomly it just disappears and i cant access it unless i go to disk management and refresh drives and it does appear in windows again but goes out after 30 minutes or so

 

[Darkbreeze]

Is this an external USB drive, or an internal drive?

If it's an internal drive try going into control panel, device manager, locate the drive under drives, double click the drive to bring up it's properties, click on the power management drive and uncheck the box that says "allow the system to turn off this device to save power". Save settings and exit. Restart the system.

If it is a USB device, try the same procedure but instead of under drives, open the category of USB controllers in device manager and turn off that same power management setting for each of the USB controllers. Once you determine if that helps the problem you can re-enable the USB power management setting for each of the USB controllers one at a time until you figure out which one is for that specific hub that the drive is attached to and leave only that one disabled. Or you can do as I do and leave them all disabled. I prefer all my USB hubs and controllers to remain powered as they use very little power anyhow and devices tend to respond much faster without having to "wake up".

 

[reznov42]

the thing is the drive randomly disappears entirely,even in device manager and explorer unless i refresh drives in disk management.
also its a internal drive

 

[Darkbreeze]

Remove the SATA cable and try a different one. Double check that the SATA power cable is fully seated, and in fact, try a different one if you have an unused one available from the power supply.

 

[reznov42]

thanks, tried out a different cable and different port on the motherboard and it works fine now

 

[Darkbreeze]

Perfect. That's what I figured might be the issue. Best of luck to you reznov.