HDDs disappearing and reappearing

RoosterC

RoosterC

RoosterC

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8 Jan 2013
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672
Location
Grenoble, France
Hi all,

I have a Win7 system with SSD for the primary OS and four internal SATA connected HDD that are used for storage for Steam, photos etc. It's been running without a problem for two years.

MB - Z68 Pro 3
Power Supply - 650 Corsair
Graphics - Nvidia 970
Win 7

Since the weekend, I have lost all the other internal SATA HDD. The computer boots from SSD without a problem, but I can't see the other HDDs.

Sometimes they will appear and tell me that they need formatting, other times they appear for a while and disappear.

I can only think it's the Power Supply or the Motherboard. I have tried connecting on HDD to one power supply cable - I can attach up to three HDD on one cable from the PSU. I've tried changing the SATA connector on the Motherboard but nothing seems to help.

Does anybody have any ideas?

Cheers...
 
Try going into Windows Power Options and setting all the Hard Disks to: Turn off hard disks after: NEVER.

In case it's related to faulty powerdown/wakening management. If that doesn't do it my bet is the motherboard's going.
 
may not be the issue as its happening to all your HDDs but have you tried replacing the sata cable on one of the drives to see if this helps?

might be worth doing a clear cmos and restore it back to default settings and then setting the sata ports to ACHI.

does the SSD use the same ports\controller on the motherboard? normally HDDs would use sata 2 ports and then a SSD would go to a sata 3 port for the faster speeds.
 
Thanks you.

I had updated the power options to set them to never turn off earlier today, but I still have the issue.

Yes, SSD is connected on SATA 3 port and the HDDs on SATA 2.

I'll check the CMOS and ACHI.
 
Could be your SATA2 controller is dieing, try connecting your HDD to SATA3 and SSD to SATA2.

Also did you try plugging in just one HDD at a time, if the PSU is on it's way out it might be able to power one but not all of the drives at once.

Have a look in the BIOS aswell at the PSU volts, ideally you'd test them with a multimeter but the BIOS should give a rough idea if they are way out. If they are way bellow 12v and 5v it's likely on it's way out.
 
the +5v is a little low

did you try clearing the cmos? and are you on the latest mb bios?

try also enabling hotswap for each sata port in the bios,that might help
 
RoosterC said:
Thanks you.

Yes, SSD is connected on SATA 3 port and the HDDs on SATA 2.

I'll check the CMOS and ACHI.
Click to expand...

move one of the HDDs to the sata 3 port and see if it disconnects. if its the sata 2 controller that's killing over then it should be fine using a sata 3 port if you have one free that is
 
This sometimes happen to my external hard drive and pretty much everytime it's because the usb cable has became slightly loose.

Make sure all sata cables etc are connected securely to your internal drives and see if that helps.
 
Updated Bios, reset CMOS and tested cables but no joy. Tried different combinations of HDD but they never get found.

When I plug in HDDs, it's like they never turn properly so I wonder if it's the power supply.

Can I still find a similar motherboard for i5-2500 processors, and can I just plug in the SSD and HDD to a new motherboard?
 
Okay, tested with new PSU and same problems.

I see that my current MB
- Supports 2nd Generation Intel
i7 / i5 / i3 in LGA1155 Package

Not sure I can get a new ASRock Z68 Pro3 MB anymore. What are my options to replace the MB?
 
Whatever you do, try and get a backup of your most important bits before anything. Have you tried the drives in a completely different computer? I'd do that first, just to rule out the drives being faulty, before dropping cash on another mobo.
 
try it in a different PC and see if it disconnects, if it doesn't you know the HDD is fine and its most likely your mobo causing the issues
 
Backup first, any 1155 chipset should run your installation with minimal fuss. Just replaced a dead Asus P8z68pro with a Gigabyte Z77 board and Windows was back running in about 15 mins. Will have to reactivate etc..
 
I had this with my ssd.. Just replaced the sata cable and it was fine

Could be as simple as that or could be driver issues, hardware issues, or tons of other things... Always try the simple things first though!
 
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