Single BIOS beep, then slave hard drive disappears.

[z-rabbit]

So, sometimes when I am playing a graphics-intensive game, my computer will throw up a single BIOS beep, and then seconds later, I'll hear the "hardware removed" sound that windows makes, at which point my slave hard drive disappears from windows explorer. (it holds all the program files, etc., while the master SSD holds the OS). Anything that was using the hard drive (like all of my games) will stop within seconds.

If I reset the computer, it's working again.

I've tried swapping SATA ports, updating the firmware, and I'm running out of ideas. The issue doesn't happen %100 percent of the time, so I can't always recreate it to see if the problem is fixed. I'm running windows 7 64-bit.

Any ideas?

 

[WyomingKnott]

Try new cables? Sometimes the simplest answer works.

If you don't have a backup of that drive, do one now to an external drive. Just in case the drive is failing.

Download the manufacturer's diagnostics and run them to see if there is a problem with the drive.