hard drive keeps disappearing

[jediobi1]

hey everyone i have a WD black 640 gig sata hdd that for some reason will show up in windows and work for a while, but then for no reason will just disappear, now it shows up in the bios and i ran lifeguard tools and was not able to do a scan, due to error code 97,

but i noticed something strange if you look in the pic below the other 2 hdd's on the system show up fine, but on the bottom drive J: it does not show its size or anything like that, could the drive be failing or it could be something in windows itself?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Have you tried another SATA cable?
How about another motherboard port?

 

[jediobi1]

Have you tried another SATA cable?
How about another motherboard port?

i will try that now as i just tried to do a windows error check on it and the drive is gone from the system again


EDIT closed out WD tools and now its back again so before i do the cables im going to run a error check

 

[EarthDog]

What is drive J:? It appears your WDCBlack is D:\ and the other two drives are reporting.

 

[dtrunk]

first signs of hard drive failure. backup now.

 

[jediobi1]

What is drive J:? It appears your WDCBlack is D:\ and the other two drives are reporting.

its just for storage the WD black is J: the 500 gig is a WD green and the D: might be a WD black aswell but it is a 1 or 2tb hdd

 

[jediobi1]

first signs of hard drive failure. backup now.

wish i could but dont have a drive to back it up too and i wont have the cash for a new drive for a few more weeks, though i seems to go away after a while i have sniper elite 3 installed on it and can play it for two hours or more without issue

 

[bob4933]

Well, stick in the freezer when it fails, you may be able to get some extra life for a backup.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Well, stick in the freezer when it fails, you may be able to get some extra life for a backup.

That is true... if the bearing on the platters is seized.
If it is an issue on the control board the freezer won't help.

Basically, if it is spinning, but not showing up then the freezer won't help.
If it won't spin, freezer time.

 

[jediobi1]

That is true... if the bearing on the platters is seized.
If it is an issue on the control board the freezer won't help.

Basically, if it is spinning, but not showing up then the freezer won't help.
If it won't spin, freezer time.

when it disappears from windows it still shows up in the bios, also i forgot to add and i apologize but i do have a hot swap bay in my computer, and apparently i put the J: drive in it, so what i did was take it out and switch it with the 2tb drive and so far its still showing in windows so maybe the hotswap bay is failing, there was like an inch of dust on the drive when i took it out,

also note i do not ever hotswap drives as i know that can be a bad thing

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Yep, could definitely just be a bad hot swap bay.

 

[jediobi1]

Yep, could definitely just be a bad hot swap bay.

well so far both drives are still showing so i hope thats what it is if not, i wont be able to replace and backup til next month

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

May be a bad PCB on the HDD. A reflow may fix it.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

May be a bad PCB on the HDD. A reflow may fix it.

Wouldn't that hurt the platters though?


If it was me, I'd remove the drive, and put it in a safe place until you can buy a drive to backup the data to.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Wouldn't that hurt the platters though?


If it was me, I'd remove the drive, and put it in a safe place until you can buy a drive to backup the data to.

Take the PCB off. There's probably those tiny "flower petal" shaped screws.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Take the PCB off. There's probably those tiny "flower petal" shaped screws.

You mean torx?

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Take the PCB off. There's probably those tiny "flower petal" shaped screws.

Well that didn't cross my mind

 

[jediobi1]

just posting a update and about something else i noticed when i was trying to fix this, first when i was trying to fix the issue, the computer in question would run for a little bit and then out of no where just shut down, thats when i remember i had reset the bios to do a bios upgrade,

which i never did, but i remember after that i had set some settings back to what i had them at in the bios, one of which was to shut down the computer if the cpu temp had gotten at or above 90 degrees,

so i took a look at the heatsink and sure enough it was covered in a layer of dust, so i took it off and cleaned the dust off and at the same time i cleaned the stock paste off the sink and cpu and put on some fresh paste and now the temps stay at under 50 and the hard drives are back to normal!

 

[bob4933]

Nice. More borg like assimilation of things to try