Windows 7: Hard Drives Disappear after Sleep Resume

[rwpritchett]

I installed Windows 7 x64 on my HTPC and have found that after resuming from S3 sleep, my media drive (1TB WD 10EACS) is missing. The drive is not seen in Disk Management and is not discovered when I scan for new hardware. The only way to get the hard drive back is to reboot. Power and data cables are secure. This exact build did not have this issue when running Vista. Win7 is the only change. If I enter S3 and then immediately wake the system the HDD is still there. The problem seems to occur when the HTPC is in standby for a longer period... like overnight.

This is on a GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard with the SB600 SATA controller running the latest drivers in AHCI mode. I switched to IDE mode and the problem has not occurred for two days. (/crosses fingers)

This is a critical flaw for HTPC use since S3 sleep is a must. My HTPC missed several TV recordings because when it woke up my media drive was gone and I'd like to prevent this from happening again. (This really reduces the WAF!)

I posted on the TechNet forum with others having the same problem here: HDD not waking from sleep Windows 7 RTM?

I thought I'd open the topic for discussion here at Tom's since the forum here is more robust. Anyone else observing this behavior in Windows 7? Does anyone know of a fix for AHCI mode?

Please share your stories/experiences.

 

[tmike]

The AHCI driver that Win7 installed on my system caused a BSOD when resuming from sleep. I had erroneously assumed that a board that old would have been completely and correctly supported. My problems were fixed by letting the chipset update install a different AHCI driver.

 

[13thmonkey]

I booted once to find no cd/dvd rom drives, both were missing, its running on the jmicron controller on a p5bdl. Sata drives are in RAID off the ich7r

Only happened once so far (but only booted 10/12time? i've seen it in vista too, but only once or twice.

 

[kody]

I am also witnessing this, with a 1TB drive as well. ONLY my 1TB drive. I have two other 320GB drives and a DVD drive that this does not happen to.

Just googled it to try to find an answer, and came to your post

This was also happening with the Win7x64 RC. I was really hoping it was an RC bug, and that the final would fix it. But it has not. My experience is EXACTLY as you have written. If you wake it up after a short period, the drive will be there. Longer period, no.

 

[rwpritchett]

I am also witnessing this, with a 1TB drive as well. ONLY my 1TB drive. I have two other 320GB drives and a DVD drive that this does not happen to.

Just googled it to try to find an answer, and came to your post

This was also happening with the Win7x64 RC. I was really hoping it was an RC bug, and that the final would fix it. But it has not. My experience is EXACTLY as you have written. If you wake it up after a short period, the drive will be there. Longer period, no.

Have you tried IDE mode?

So far, I haven't seen the problem with IDE mode but I really do need the AHCI hot-swap feature as I run an eSATA port from the onboard SATA controller and it's a pain to not have that enabled.

 

[JohnAdriaan]

I too have this exact issue, and it too is my media drive... This is on Windows 7 final (not RC)

I have five(!) drives:
System: Seagate 320GB
Music: Seagate 500 GB
Keep: Seagate 1TB
Recordings: WD 1TB ** This is the one that disappears **
Storage: WD 1TB ** This one seems to have a bad controller - I'm still diagnosing it **

So it isn't the fact it is a 1TB drive. Maybe that it is a Western Digital drive???

My next attempt will be to set the Hard Drives to sleep 1 minute before the computer goes to suspend...

 

[13thmonkey]

anyone else seeing dvdrom drives dissappearing?

 

[rwpritchett]

I took another look into device manager and noticed that my SATA controller actually was not using the ATI driver, but rather the default Windows 7 driver. Last night I switched back to AHCI mode and manually installed the ATI driver (I had to use an older RAID driver from the motherboard website). I put my HTPC to sleep last night.

This morning I brought it out of S3 and my media drive was still there. So possibly this is a problem with the Windows 7 SATA driver?

Posters having the same problem- check what driver your SATA controller is using. I was certain I had installed the latest ATI driver when I installed the chipset drivers. Perhaps the Windows 7 SATA driver is given higher priority.

13thmonkey- my BD drive is on the same SATA controller but it's never disappeared on me.

 

[dsk98]

I had a SATA HDD that would disappear after waking from S3. This problem started with a clean install of Windows 7 and a switch to AHCI. It would reappear if I rebooted or did another S3 cycle. Very repeatable. I fixed it by installing and running Intel Matrix Storage Manager from here: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/

System Description
EVGA x58 SLI
Sapphire Vapor-X 4890
Processor Intel Core i7 920 DO
WD Velociraptor 300GB System Drive
2 Samsung 1Tb 720 HD Data Drives
LG CH08LS10K 8X SATA Blu-Ray Combo
2 SAMSUNG SH-S223 22X SATA DVD
G.SKILL Trident DDR3 2000 6GB
Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium

 

[rwpritchett]

2nd night in a row and the hard drive has not disappeared.

Based on my experience and dsk98 it seems the SATA driver that ships with Windows 7 has a bug in it that is the root cause of this problem.

 

[seananderson256]

I'm having the exact same problem as you guys: one of my media drives disappears after resuming from standby. I've tried changing its SATA port, swapping its SATA port with with the port of one of the working drives, etc. Same problem, as if the problem is with that particular HDD and not the ports or anything. It's a Seagate 500Gig drive, (too lazy to go fetch the model number).

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit from an official disc (not a RC), and when I installed it I never installed any Motherboard drivers since everything worked fine right away. It detected all my motherboard components and they're working fine. Perhaps it'll fix the issue if I manually install my Asus SATA drivers? I'm going to give it a try.

 

[fnord123]

I have the exact same problem - Win7 ultimate. My primary (C drive is a 160GB Intel SSD, my secondary (D is a 2TB WD GreenDrive. Occasionally after coming back from sleep the D: drive disappears until I reboot again.

I really don't want to install the Intel Matrix drivers, because trim isn't supported in them for my SSD. Does anybody have any other fixes (other than perhaps disabling S3 sleep)?

 

[phoenix6903]

Same problem with W7 x64 Pro.

How do I switch from AHCI to IDE mode?

 

[rwpritchett]

You go into the BIOS and change the controller from AHCI to IDE. Getting into your BIOS is different from motherboard to motherboard but you usually have to press <delete> during bootup or some F-key. Check your user manual if you can't figure it out.

 

[phoenix6903]

That's what I needed to know. THANKS!

 

[dcj104]

Hi
I thought once drives were installed in AHCI it was not possible to switch back to IDE...

I've got exactly the same problem
It is using it as a second drive where it will not wake up. ( I keep programs on C: and all data on E

Samsung HD103UJ 1TB Drive
Asus M4A79XTD EVO Motherboard, I'm sure is not the problem
I've tried Maxtor Maxline II 250GB and Hitachi 0A34515 500Gb on the system without any other changes and they work fine.

I'll try using IDE and see if the works.

As the common factor seems to be 1TB Drives, Win 7 , I think there must be a bug in Win& SATA Driver

ttfn
Derek

 

[rwpritchett]

You can go AHCI->IDE without any trouble. Going from IDE->AHCI is only possible if you jump through some hoops.

 

[aslg]

I have the same problem: G45 motherboard, Windows 7 64bit, 1 OCZ Vertex SSD (OS), 1 WD 1TB Green HDD (Data). I use the Microsoft AHCI drivers because the Intel ones do not pass TRIM commands to the SDD. The WD HDD disappears resuming from S3 standby.

I tried to go from AHCI to IDE in the BIOS settings but the system fails to boot.
How to do go from AHCI to IDE without reinstalling the OS?

 

[KCKC]

Same problem here. I have a generic Lenovo H230 W/G45 motherboard, Windows 7 64, 640 GB HDD, WD 1TB Green, Seagate 1.5TB.
The Seagate NEVER wakes the first time and sometimes the WD doesn't. I have to recycle SLEEP or reboot.
Switching to IDE will not boot.

 

[KCKC]

I finally found a HOTFIX that took care of my problem. It seems as though large SATA drives take longer to start up and this fixes the problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977178/#top

 

[rwpritchett]

Best answer selected by rwpritchett.

 

[rwpritchett]

Thanks. I tried the hotfix and so far the drive has not disappeared.

 

[jake_83]

There are two files listed under that hotfix. Did you guys install both?

 

[rwpritchett]

I only installed one. I'd go with the one that has the latest date. Make sure you request the correct x86 or x64 for 32-bit or 64-bit, respectively.

As of today, the latest file is Fix306215 dated 19-Jan-2010.

 

[tcpoob]

I only installed one. I'd go with the one that has the latest date. Make sure you request the correct x86 or x64 for 32-bit or 64-bit, respectively.

As of today, the latest file is Fix306215 dated 19-Jan-2010.

the hotfix seems to be fixing the problem if you get STOP errors waking up - but since you could wake up your computer, and only then you lost secondary HD(s), you must not have run into the STOP error as my understanding is you see those STOP errors in blue screen of death. If this is true ( that you hadn't run into STOP errors waking up the computer), you can still install the hotfix and are seeing that disappeared HD after wakeup no longer lost?

Please confirm. -tcpoob