Secondary HDD disconnects while in-game.

[i-am-L]

Everything was running fine with Windows 10 Pro x64 build 10586 until I decided to install the Anniversary Update 1607.
I usually play CS:GO, Rocket League, GTA Online, TF2 and Paladins.

Windows 10 is installed on the SSD [Samsung 750 EVO 120GB]
and all of the above games including Steam Client are installed on a secondary HDD [Seagate Barracuda 500GB]

So, after successful installation of anniversary update, there was a rain of problems.
While playing GTA Online for quite a time, the game crashed. (Steam was still running)
I tried to relaunch and it said missing executable.
So I opened explorer to find out that my second HDD partitions went missing.
I checked Disk Management in Win 10 and it wasn't there too!
I rescanned HDD via disk management and the HDD reconnected.

While playing Rocket League, it is fine until it is searching for the servers. Once it starts joining a server, the game freezes for 2-3mins then there's the loading screen where that "circular loading indicator" spins very fast than usual speed for some time and I am disconnected from the server saying "Timed out". Sometimes, I would join the server and play but the game would crash due to HDD disconnection.

While playing Paladins, I would join the game and even the game starts but there are some problems. Firstly, after spawning, the background music suddenly stops (all other sounds such as footsteps and weapons work). It will run for some time like that and then either the game would crash via HDD disconnection or it would just freeze for around 2-3 mins and I am presented with the in-game sign-in interface (I log out automatically).

The problems with Rocket League and Paladins are very similar. I thought this might be a network driver issue so I updated the driver but that didn't help out.

All of this started with the installation of Anniversary update. I rolled back to the previous build 10586 and the problems still persist.

But the strange thing is, this never happens with CS:GO and TF2.
Also, GTA V being such a heavy game doesn't face HDD disconnection problem this often. I can join GTA Online servers and play, no issues there.

I thought PSU might be the problem, I have a cheap 550W PSU.
But that doesn't make much sense as GTA V is much more resource hungry than Rocket League and Paladins and it hardly crashes.

CPU: AMD FX 4100 at 3.8GHz
GPU: GTX 750Ti 2GB [Zotac]

This is a weird scenario but still.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Memhorder]

How old is the Hard Drive? Gotta ask.

First I would open up the cmd prompt (Windows+x) and Verify your Windows files. Type "sfc /scannow" no quotes. Let it do it's thing.

Also. Check your connections to the SATA port. Could be loose.

Then I would check the drive for errors. Since you got a Seagate drive you can use Seatools.

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support/downloads/seatools/

or you can use the cmd promt again and type "chkdsk /a-z" the a-z would be the hard drives letter.

 

[i-am-L]

How old is the Hard Drive? Gotta ask.

First I would open up the cmd prompt (Windows+x) and Verify your Windows files. Type "sfc /scannow" no quotes. Let it do it's thing.

Also. Check your connections to the SATA port. Could be loose.

Then I would check the drive for errors. Since you got a Seagate drive you can use Seatools.

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support/downloads/seatools/

or you can use the cmd promt again and type "chkdsk /a-z" the a-z would be the hard drives letter.

The drive is about 3 yrs old.
I did a Reset while keeping my files. now the problem occurs less often.
I am able to connect and join servers. The only things that remain now is the HDD disconnection midway, BSOD and surprisingly an orange screen of death with no text I encountered 10 mins ago while playing GTA V.

 

[Memhorder]

Was there any integrity violations in the windows files? Any errors on the drive? I think your Hard Drive is on the way out. I would back anything important up and consider a new one

 

[i-am-L]

Was there any integrity violations in the windows files? Any errors on the drive? I think your Hard Drive is on the way out. I would back anything important up and consider a new one

I did sfc /scannow and it did find and fix some errors. But again, I doubt it might be the power supply as it is a local 550W that I got for a cheap price. Also this HDD disconnection problem doesn't occur with CS:GO or TF2,

Another thing, I installed Blue Screen View for reading the dump files and it said ntoskrnl.exe was the cause for the orange screen of death.

 

[Memhorder]

Try chkdsk or seatools. It will give you the overall health of the drive. Corrupt data is a bad sign for the HDD. CS:GO or TF2 may not be in a bad sector. Try checking the drive for errors.

Also. Here's a list of utilities you can use. Take your pick.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/all-the-tools-you-need-to-predict-the-death-of-your-hard-drive/