Hard drive disappearing randomly

[philloc15]

Hi all,

I'm trying to install a second hard drive for additional storage. The HDD is recognized in bios but is not showing up in windows after every reboot. The only way to make it appear is to go into device manager and scan for hardware changes. The drive will appear and be accessible for a while and then disappear again randomly. So, I will have to scan for hardware changes again to make it show up. Anyone have any ideas on what do try? I appreciate any and all help as this is driving me nuts!

Things I have already tried:
1. Checked for loose connections
2. Replaced SATA connector and changed power connector
3. Swapped SATA port with my primary drive (Primary drive still recognized and boots fine)
4. Removed optical drives to reduce load on PSU
5. Updated BIOS and drivers
6. RMA the HDD

My build:
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
GPU: EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
MOBO: MSI P67A-G45 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
PSU: CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
SSD (primary): Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
HDD: Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K
Optical drive 1: ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM
Optical drive 2: SAMSUNG Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Combo Model SH-B123L LightScribe Support - OEM

 

[Joe C]

you need to initialize the drive and format it first before windows can use or even "see" drive

I do not know what o.s. you have, but this should be close for all...
go into the Control Panel, select Administrative Tools, select Computer Management, look for Disk Management, and click on that. You should see your drive in the Disk Management box, Select the option to initialize and then format it. When you go to My Computer, your drive should show up

 

[philloc15]

That step was initially done when I installed the physical drive. Windows 7 has "seen" the drive. The disk has already been initialized and formatted. I have also saved files to the drive already. The problem is that it doesn't stay "seen" in windows (My Computer). The drive will disappear from device manager also after a random period of time or after I restart the computer.

 

[Celery]

I had that problem before when I installed my old drive to copy files over to my new system. I solved it by going to the Windows Disk Management and put the second drive "online."

Right click on the drive letter and choose "go online."

 

[philloc15]

I had that problem before when I installed my old drive to copy files over to my new system. I solved it by going to the Windows Disk Management and put the second drive "online."

Right click on the drive letter and choose "go online."

It does not give me that option when I right click the drive letter. They both show online in the disk management screen.

 

[Joe C]

you can check the health status of this drive by going to the support area of the drives manufacture's web site and getting their diagnostic utility. It should be an .iso file the you burn to make a bootable disk and then you boot up your pc with this disk and run the software

 

[carnageX]

Make sure your chipset drivers and such are up to date as well.

 

[philloc15]

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was busy trying other things. I've re-installed Windows 7 64-bit and tried increasing the PCH voltage to 1.06v to see if that would fix any of the dropout issues. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck with the same problem of the hard drive disappearing.

I think the HDD is developing bad sectors from it dropping out all the time (probably corrupted files being used when it disconnected). I used Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool when I got the drive and it passed. And now since it has dropped out a few times it failed the Quick Test. I ran chkdsk and it came up with 396KB in bad sectors. It seems unlikely that I would have 2 bad hard drives in a row that have the same problem. Any way to fix this or just purchase a new drive?

Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool Quick Test Result:
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0
Firmware Number: 05.01D05
Capacity: 1000.20 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 2 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 97 (Unknown Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 2!

CHKDSK result:
CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
256 file records processed. File verification completed.
0 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 0 EA records processed. 0 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
274 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
256 file SDs/SIDs processed. Security descriptor verification completed.
10 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
528 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
240 files processed. File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
244160425 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete.
Adding 99 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

976759807 KB total disk space.
21568 KB in 5 files.
8 KB in 11 indexes.
396 KB in bad sectors.
96527 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
976641308 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
244189951 total allocation units on disk.
244160327 allocation units available on disk.

 

[Joe C]

If it's still in warranty, you can get an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) from WD. You can do this via their support area on the WD web site. They will probably ask for you the error code that the diagnostic test gave you, so have that on hand too

If your not in warranty...then your SOL, you can use PC Part Picker to find one on sale
System Build - PCPartPicker

 

[philloc15]

I'm not sure the hard drive is the problem though. Like I said, the WD software checked out good when I first installed the drive. It only started to fail the test when the drive started disappearing randomly, which I think created the bad sectors (Unless I'm having some really bad luck). Any other troubleshooting ideas before I try a 3rd HDD?