Question Win10 - 2nd Drive Intermittent

[THRobinson]

Hey guys, got a bit of a head scratcher on this one.

About a month ago, I wiped my sister's system clean and started over. I always delete/recreate partitions, quick scan and format before installing Win10x64.

Setup is simple. 120GB SSD as C:\ for the OS and apps. D:\ is a 1TB HDD where I remap My Docs, Pictures, Music, Downloads, etc.... and I added a 3rd one (2TB HDD) for movies/tv series setup as a share to a KODI android box on tv TV they watch.

Other day, no OS detected error. Windows installer said can't repair. Had a USB bootable virus scanner (Kaspersky) and no viruses. So, reinstalled Windows after formatting the SSD drive. Now it shows and the movie/tv drive does, but not the drive with her docs/photos/etc. BIOS see's it. I go into disk manager and it shows and says needs initiated to be used and only showed it as being about 30mb I think.

Pulled it out, stuck it into my PC and popped up asking to repair, said OK and fine. Ran windows ChkDsk /f/r on it, HDDScan, and SeaTools on it.... quick and full and after hours everything came up as OK no errors found.

Back to the sister's PC, stuck it in. Not detected, disk manager again wants it initialized first. It was supposed to be the D:\ but the media drive was D:\ so, assigned E:\ to the media drive. Shut down, into the BIOS and did a reset to defaults, rebooted the system and finally it works. Data and images etc all there. So, re-mapped everything back to the E:\.

Downloaded a bunch of apps including the nvidia drivers. Installed everything fine, winrar, chrome, etc... installing the NVidia and midway through the D:\ vanished. Disk manager again says needs initialized to be used. Nividia finished, because it unzips the file to a temp C:\ folder. Shut down, BIOS shows the drive just fine, booted up again.

D:\ shows, so, running chkdsk d: /f/r right now and getting a bunch of bad clusters found at stage 4... still running.

So... ???

Bad drive? Sata port? Cable? Other?

Weirdest part for me is that my computer found no issues and when detected asked to repair. Her computer finds error, no repair prompt when detected just says an uninitiated drive.

EDIT - Checked and stage 4 had a big list of bad clusters found but could not repair because not enough space left on disk. Then Stage 5 ended because of the same lack of space issue. Then drive vanished again. 1TB drive with 60GB used. Should have more than enough space to repair.

 

[Lutfij]

If the specs to your build are listed in your sig space please mention them in the body of your thread. Sig space specs can and will cahnge over time, rendering this thread and any subsequent solution moot to the person in the same boat as you're in now.

I'm adding them here for posterites sake;
Asus H97-Plus | Intel Xeon e3-1231v3 3.4Ghz | 16GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 | Asus GeForce DUAL-GTX1060-O6G | Samsung 850 EVO 250GB Primary | Seagate Barracuda 2TB Secondary | EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W | Corsair 300r Case | Win10x64 Pro

If the specs to the build aren't that listed in your sig, please list them like so;
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:

include the age of the PSU, apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for the motherboard will also add context to the issue you're facing.

 

[THRobinson]

Well, as said, this is my sister's computer so, no, her computer specs aren't listed in my signature.

Bought the parts a few years ago for an arcade cabinet, went with a RaspPi instead, and her PC was an old dualcore, so I donated the parts and built her something faster. Not at the PC now but going through email/orders for part info

ASRock H110M-HDS Intel 1151
Intel i3-7100
G.Skills Ripjaws V 2x8GB DDR4 2133
NVidia GTX 650 Ti Boost
C:\ Kingston SSD (SATA1)
D:\ Seagate 1TB HDD - Problem Drive (SATA2)
E:\ Seagate 2TB HDD (SATA3)
F:\ LG CD/DVDRom Writer (SATA4)
Corsair CX450M
Win10x64 22H2

So, the mobo/ram/cpu were bought in 2017, then sat unused for 2yrs. That's when my sister needed some computer help and the boot time was just unbearable.

PSU/SSD were bought in around late 2019/early 2020 if I recall to build a PC for her to use.

GPU was my old card I kept as a spare just in case.

The hard drives, 2TB E:\ was bought 2017. The drive with issues, no recollection... was a spare I had.

Her original setup was the SSD and the 1TB in an old case I had, worked a few years until the 20yr old case's power button died. We had a case that was 2yrs old from another computer that was much nicer and better air flow so dumped the guts over to the new case. Few weeks later I added the 2TB media drive (E:\) and then about a month later this all happened. So... it was working fine for quite a while before went belly up. Wasn't like I swapped parts and a day later it died.

Thinking next steps are

1. replace SATA cable and test
2. failing the SATA cable, try swapping SATA ports between D:\ and E:\ and see if the media drive starts flaking out... though risky since nothing to backup to

 

[THRobinson]

Well... didn't get as much (any) advice as I had hoped but I think sorted it out.

Swapped for a new SATA cable - FAIL
Switched SATA ports between E:\ and D:\ - FAIL
Switched power plugs between E:\ and D:\ - E:\ came up no isses, D:\ showed up but kept making a sorta tik-tik-grunt noise like it was stuck trying to read a file or something.

Unplugged power from D:\ and running chkdsk on E:\ and if OK, then thinking a bum power plug on the PSU.