Question SSD disappearing and Disk C filling up ?

[DeadBrain]

Hello, recently I have ran into an issue that keeps repeating itself and it seems to happen more frequent as time goes on:

I've noticed that sometimes when my PC is doing something resource-intensive (playing video games, rendering 3D images, etc), my E: drive (Patriot P200 SSD 1TB) will disappear. Afterwards, restarting Windows once or twice will bring the disk back, but before that happens - my C: drive will fill up almost completely: leaving between 2 to 500 MB (I keep 10 GB free there which is why I noticed). This always happens to only the E: drive, even if I'm doing something utilizing the D: drive (also SSD 1TB).

I've tried checking over the issues in many ways so far:

• CrystalDiskInfo doesn't show any issues.
• Using the Windows drive cleaner when disk C: is full didn't remove anything.
• chkdsk runs into an issue when trying to scan the C: drive when it's filled - "Snapshot was deleted. CHKDSK cannot continue."
• SFC command completed but didn't fix anything.

At this point I can still work on this PC but I would like to fix this issue before it causes permanent damage.

 

[Colif]

CrystalDiskInfo doesn't show any issues

it can't see physical problems. A drive disappearing could be a problem with its controller chip
I would rma a drive that randomly disappears. As it might stop coming back.

the filling drive thing is odd. I can't say I seen that before - could be windows reaction to drive suddenly not being there. Strange it doesn't crash or fail action.

How big are the drives? 10gb free? should possibly have more free on the drive than that anyway.

 

[DeadBrain]

the filling drive thing is odd. I can't say I seen that before - could be windows reaction to drive suddenly not being there. Strange it doesn't crash or fail action.

When the drive disappears, my PC also seems to act like it's running out of memory - it starts closing down browser tabs, cannot load in image previews etc. Perhaps when I restart it in this situation, it tries to keep some sort of backup data?

How big are the drives? 10gb free? should possibly have more free on the drive than that anyway.

That's for my C: drive which I only use to keep Windows and some programs on - it's a 120GB SSD (Patriot Burst), I keep all my documents on the D: drive (1TB, no problems, 120 GB free) and my programs/games on E: drive (1 TB, disappears, 200 GB free)

it can't see physical problems. A drive disappearing could be a problem with its controller chip
I would rma a drive that randomly disappears. As it might stop coming back.

I've considered this too but would rather go through other options before starting this process.

Looking through other threads with similar issues, some people have suggested it might be a PSU problem - and indeed mine is at least 2-3 years old at this point, but I'd also would rather not buy a replacement part until I'm sure it's the issue.

 

[Colif]

what make/model PSU is it?
Good ones should be able to last at least 3 years, if not way longer.

can you right click start
choose disk management
expand the next window so you can see all details of upper/lower area
take a screenshot and upload it to an image sharing website and show link here.

When the drive disappears, my PC also seems to act like it's running out of memory - it starts closing down browser tabs, cannot load in image previews etc. Perhaps when I restart it in this situation, it tries to keep some sort of backup data?

that is odd. Makes me wonder where the page file is on your PC. Should be on C.

 

[DeadBrain]

can you right click start
choose disk management
expand the next window so you can see all details of upper/lower area
take a screenshot and upload it to an image sharing website and show link here.

My Windows is using my home language (Polish) but here's the screenshot:

https://imgur.com/a/i4Kjfg3

View: https://imgur.com/a/i4Kjfg3


I've noticed that my C: drive is split into a few partitions which is weird as I've never done that by hand - the rightmost 517 MB one is apparently labeled as the "recovery partition"

 

[Colif]

Its odd the 1st partition is blank on C
which of them says it has the Page File? What is the other description on D?
I assume E says Basic Data Partition?


recovery partition being last is normal. Its part of windows, the EFI is the boot partition.

 

[DeadBrain]

Its odd the 1st partition is blank on C
which of them says it has the Page File? What is the other description on D?
I assume E says Basic Data Partition?

recovery partition being last is normal. Its part of windows, the EFI is the boot partition.

E says Basic Data Partition yes, turns out D: is both Basic Data Partition and Page File. The biggest partition on C is tagged as Healthy, Emergency Dump, Basic Data Partition

 

[Colif]

Emergency dump might be why its being filled.
Page file really should be on C drive, wonder if D drive is also disappearing at same time meaning windows uses the Emergency dump and fills up C. I can't find much on the Emergency Dump. Its the emergency memory dump

is this 10? go to settings/system/about
choose Advanced System settings from right hand menu
under performance, click settings
click advanced tab
under virtual memory, click change
untick Automatically manage paging file for all drives (if its ticked)
click No paging File and click set
click OK

That deletes the current one
Restart PC and retrace all those steps again to point where you unticked Automatically manage paging file for all drives and tick it again so windows manages it.

I think that should move page file to C


C drive really should be bigger than 120gb. I can understand having Page file on a 1tb drive if you only have 120gb on c, and 10gb of space. I would consider putting windows on 1 of the other 2 drives, and use 120gb as storage

 

[SkyNetRising]

E says Basic Data Partition yes, turns out D: is both Basic Data Partition and Page File. The biggest partition on C is tagged as Healthy, Emergency Dump, Basic Data Partition

I'd suggest you free up more space on C: .
Or migrate C: to a bigger capacity drive - minimum 250GB (or larger).

And replace disappearing drive.

 

[DeadBrain]

is this 10?

Yeah it's Windows 10 - I'll try to get through all these steps today and hopefully manage to fix this stuff then look into getting a bigger drive for my Windows - it hasn't caused problems in the past (where I still had a 60 GB HDD for it) so I'm surprised it might come from there. Thank you for your help, I'll see if it helps and return to this thread to either mark is as finished or find out more info.

 

[Colif]

I wouldn't put windows on the drive that disappears. That doesn't sound like a logical move.

 

[Ralston18]

And I will make the suggestion to look in Reliabillity History and Event Viewer.

Either one or both tool may be capturing some related error codes, warnings, or even informational events just prior to or at the time all those strange things happen.

Reliability History uses a time line format that can be directly helpful with specific errors and patterns of errors.

Event Viewer is more difficult and takes additional time and effort to navigate and understand.

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

Errors, etc. can be clicked for more details. The details may or may not be helpful.

Still worth taking a look at it all.

 

[DeadBrain]

And I will make the suggestion to look in Reliabillity History and Event Viewer.

I've taken a look using both tools and they both have Error events logged on the days I experienced those problems - Reliability History shows "Windows was not closed properly" which is interesting because I always closed down Windows using the start menu. Event Viewer shows that apparently Runtime Broker encountered a fatal error and closed down suddenly.

I wouldn't put windows on the drive that disappears. That doesn't sound like a logical move.

So far only E: drive disappears and I heard that my 120 GB C drive is too small for Windows. I'm considering buying a bigger SSD to completely replace my C drive.

 

[Colif]

depending on prices, might as well grab 500gb.

Although you already have 2 x 1tb drives, so its up to you. Depends how much space you use. I hardly use any myself.

 

[DeadBrain]

Unfortunately it seems that the issue persists, right now even unpacking a large .rar file seems to trigger it. Can't really get any more info right now so I suppose I'll think about exchanging that SSD into something better.

 

[Colif]

it didn't sound like a problem that would just fix itself.