Question SATA SSD keeps disappearing from laptop

[mateusk_10]

Hi all, I recently bought a SanDisk 1TB SSD to use as a secondary internal drive in my Dell Inspiron 2019 laptop. It already has a SATA 256gb M2 drive plugged in.
I installed the SSD, it is connected to the motherboard by a ribbon cable, which was provided inside the laptop. Everything worked fine, until about 30 minutes later, when it disappeared from windows, disk management and even BIOS. at this time I was sure I hadnt connected the ribbon cable properly, as it is quite fragile. I then opened up the laptop once again, made sure the ribbon cable was locked in properly, closed it off again, powered it on, and it worked. "it was really that", so I thought.
To my disappointment, it disappeared once again, after about 30 minutes. at this point I thought the cable was faulty, as it was loose inside the laptop since 2019. I then ordered a new one, it arrived, I installed it, works for 30 minutes, disappears again. I also tried updating drivers, Intel Rapid Controller, BIOS, everything basically. I also tried plugging the new SSD into my desktop, and it worked for several days, no problems. I really dont know what to do anymore and I have tried a lot of research on that, with no solutions, so I'm posting here with hopes someone has any ideas.
Every time it disappears, I load the BIOS menu twice so it can reappear.

TL;DR: bought a new SSD to use as a secondary drive on laptop, it keeps disappearing from system after about 30 minutes, tried replacing sata ribbon cable, tried updating drivers and bios, tried loading BIOS, same SSD works on desktop

 

[evermorex76]

Check Windows Event Viewer for any events related to the disk, but if it's not even showing up in the BIOS until you refresh it repeatedly then it sounds like the drive itself has issues, or it's a BIOS issue. What is the exact model of the SSD? (Similarly, in your signature just putting "Crucial NVMe SSD" doesn't mean anything since they make many. )

 

[SkyNetRising]

TL;DR: bought a new SSD to use as a secondary drive on laptop, it keeps disappearing from system after about 30 minutes

Precisely 30 minutes?
Seems like a power saving feature.
Check Control Panel\Power options
See after what time HDDs are turned off.

Change to 0 minutes, to prevent HDDs to be turned off.

Spoiler

 

[evermorex76]

Change to 0 minutes, to prevent HDDs to be turned off.

"Turning off" just puts them to sleep and really only matters with HDDs to make them stop spinning, but should never cause them to disappear from Windows and certainly never the BIOS because the controller in the drive is still partially awake but in low-power mode. Otherwise Windows would never know that there was a drive that it could "wake up" and could even lose access to the drive Windows is running from. (Although not these days when Windows never stops doing stuff in the background so the C drive can never sleep.)

It is possible the drive's firmware has a bug, which is why I asked about the model. Installing WD Dashboard (or SanDisk, whatever is appropriate for this drive) and checking for updates may resolve the issue.

 

[mateusk_10]

Check Windows Event Viewer for any events related to the disk, but if it's not even showing up in the BIOS until you refresh it repeatedly then it sounds like the drive itself has issues, or it's a BIOS issue. What is the exact model of the SSD? (Similarly, in your signature just putting "Crucial NVMe SSD" doesn't mean anything since they make many. )

I'll give Event Viewer a try. for the model, it just says "SanDisk SSD PLUS 1000GB". I tried checking for updates with SanDisk Dashboard, but it says its updated :s

 

[mateusk_10]

Precisely 30 minutes?
Seems like a power saving feature.
Check Control Panel\Power options
See after what time HDDs are turned off.

Change to 0 minutes, to prevent HDDs to be turned off.

Spoiler

Tried that, but oddly this laptop doesn't have the "Hard Disk" option under power options :s not sure why, it has few

 

[mateusk_10]

"Turning off" just puts them to sleep and really only matters with HDDs to make them stop spinning, but should never cause them to disappear from Windows and certainly never the BIOS because the controller in the drive is still partially awake but in low-power mode. Otherwise Windows would never know that there was a drive that it could "wake up" and could even lose access to the drive Windows is running from. (Although not these days when Windows never stops doing stuff in the background so the C drive can never sleep.)

It is possible the drive's firmware has a bug, which is why I asked about the model. Installing WD Dashboard (or SanDisk, whatever is appropriate for this drive) and checking for updates may resolve the issue.

I thought so too, the drive shouldnt disappear from BIOS since its a lower level connection, thats why I swapped the cable, but no good.
I tried one more thing: installing Windows on the SanDisk and booting on that. surprisingly it seems to have solved it for now, maybe because the C drive is never inactive? even if it shouldnt turn off like that. maybe the motherboard controller has issues?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Tried that, but oddly this laptop doesn't have the "Hard Disk" option under power options :s not sure why, it has few

It definitely has those options.
You just have to go a bit deeper.

Control Panel/Power Options/Change Plan Settings/Change Advanced Power Settings.​

 

[mateusk_10]

It definitely has those options.
You just have to go a bit deeper.

Control Panel/Power Options/Change Plan Settings/Change Advanced Power Settings.​

sorry for different language, but it only has "background desktop settings", "Sleep", "Video" and "Battery"