Hard drive disappearing from my computer

[mikee]

I have been having a problem with my 1.5tb seagate ST31500341AS hard drive where sometimes I'll be listening to music or watching a video and suddenly the music or video will freeze and I will look in computer and the hard drive will have disappeared.

It usually happens when I'm doing something like playing minecraft and lightening to music. It used to do this as well on my old rig. I've ran tests in seatools they all passed but in hd tune under health there are a few items marked in yellow but still say ok.

This is what is listed in the event viewer. the screenshot is from my old rig but its just the same on my new rig I just can't find the entry now that it has been a day since the issue happened last.

By mikee286 at 2012-03-30

and here is what I am talking about in hd tune



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[carnageX]

Is it an external drive or internal? If external, is it a retail external, or one you put in an enclosure yourself?

Have you tried updating your drivers (chipset)? Have you tried plugging it into another port?

I would also try running a chkdsk /f /r from command prompt on the drive to try and fix any bad data on the drive as a result of the constant disconnects.

 

[GhOsT1321]

Can you post a SS of what CrystalDiskInfo says about the drive?
CrystalDiskInfo - Software - Crystal Dew World

Make sure that the data and power cables are not coming loose, if they are get a locking cable.
Back up your data as I have seen this occur in failing hard drives, that later show up as failing on hard drive tests.

 

[mikee]

It is internal this happened to this exact drive in my old computer so it is happening on a completely new mobo. I installed all the drivers from the asus mobo driver cd and the drivers that showed up on windows update.

I am using all new locking cables that came with the mobo and different cables on the psu as it is modular




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I'm having a hard time deciphering what these values mean.

reallocated sector count - does this mean I have bad sectors that have been re mapped to another part of the drive.

In HD tune it says spin retry count I don't know what that is but its yellow

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

0x0A = Count of retry of spin start attempts. This attribute stores a total count of the spin start attempts to reach the fully operational speed (under the condition that the first attempt was unsuccessful). An increase of this attribute value is a sign of problems in the hard disk mechanical subsystem.


IMO, your HDD has been having issues with the spin-up motor. Either it doesn't have sufficient power to spin up, or you have been letting the drive spin down too often and with higher capacity drives, due to more platters, it's hard on the motor to get the platters to spin up. I suggest RMA if possible after backing your data up. You REALLY don't want that drive to fail prior to a backup....

The unknown error, 0xB8 should be this description...
This attribute is a part of Hewlett-Packard's SMART IV technology, as well as part of other vendors' IO Error Detection and Correction schemas, and it contains a count of parity errors which occur in the data path to the media via the drive's cache RAM.


I highly suggest getting a different drive, because a drive that drops from your controller is one that has a bad logic board, firmware, or has mechanical failure, which you have signs of mechanical failure.


Also, do not let larger sized drives spin down if you have them left on long periods of time, it harms the motor that tries to spin that set of platters up. If you need long operational times, with high speed, and a drive that can stand the stress of powering down get an enterprise drive.

 

[mikee]

I think this drive was the first 1.5tb drive on the market I saw people complaining about problems it had and a firmware update which I tried and it failed now or at least in the past 4 months the issue involving the disappearing started for no reason.

I can't rma it because its 4 years old and even if they do allow an rma I think they would probably stick me with a refurbished replacement of the same problematic drive.

Also I have no means of backing this drive up it has about 700gb used and I don't have a place to back that stuff up.

I might just have to buy a new drive and use my hdd dock to copy the data to a new drive.

At any rate I think I am going to go to the tiger direct store in london and ask them what can be done and buy a new drive probably a 1.5 tb or 2 tb drive

Has the technology in 1.5tb and 2tb drives come very far since 2008 when I got mine? Are they less problematic now?

I'm still open to suggestions.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Somewhat, yes. Platter technology still progresses whether people like it or not.

Data Density which still increases to this day has allowed 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB drives to end up with fewer platters, which equal less weight to move, less heat, and less vibration compared to earlier models, this results in theoretically, longer life spans. But as I said, try to find a drive meant for heavy use if you can, though that drive seems to have lasted a good while. After 5 years I TRY to replace drives, even if they are OK, because, well, after 5 years it just seems drives drop left and right.

BTW, AVOID 3TB or larger drives, they seem to still have high failure rates, and with that kind of capacity on a single drive... That gets a bit scary.

Another reason the drive could be dropping is due to the reallocated sectors. If a drive hangs up long enough while trying to repair a sector, it can actually time out on the controller and drop from the system, so you should still attempt a chkdsk /f /r on that drive as stated earlier, note it will take a long time to go through it.

 

[mikee]

here's the chkdsk I ran last night like you asked. It doesn't look like it found anything serious.

I am absolutely baffled as to why this is happening. I think hard drive diagnosis software as well as the logic on the hard drive that detects these failures.



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[C0RR0SIVE]

I would call your HDD Manufacture and try to get someone higher up in tech support and mention the SMART data you are seeing and what they think your course of action should be. I honestly would spin the drive down and try to get a replacement soon, but I assume your short on cash. Also, what is your PSU make/model?

 

[mikee]

My PSU is an ultra X4 modular PSU 600W its only a year old