Win10 SATA drive disappears. KNoppix sees it, then not. Default BIOS brings it back, then gone

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pccitizen

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Posted on Superuser, thot I would add it here...
Tearing my hair out for about a month with this. Gigabyte mobo, win10 upgrade from win8. SATA WD 1TB drive (tho has happened with other SATA). Last time around, I got a win10 install restored to a 1TB SATA just fine [using win7 backup/restore! from a win10 install using an IDE drive]. Used it for about 5 days, then bang! reboot, and no SATA drive appears, even on Windows recovery disk, no sda. The BIOS just hangs at "AHCI drive init....." and eventually times out - no SATA drive to be found. When I boot knoppix, I can see the drive, and even mount it, warned by Knoppix to add "-o remove_hiberfile" Then I see the drive and all files - but still not there when I boot win10. This has happened twice at least. Happened with TWO Gbyte mobos, which BLOWs my mind [updated all drivers on GA-78LMT. This is a GA-880GM-UD2H] What am I doing to cause this?? And how do I fix this! A month of googling with lots of hints, but no clear answers. I even when thru the BCDboot/bcdedit etc stuff on winrecovery - don't want to venture there again until I undertand this.


Second time I booted Knoppix, it could NOT find the drive. Win10 still stalls at BIOS AHCI drive init.... I could believe a bad disk drive/SATA chip, but this has happened with two mobos, two SATA drives. I have swapped power supply/SATA cables. Nothing left. Same AMD Athlon, but surely not?


Tried gparted live CD, still no sda. Booted again, defaulted BIOS, it asked me to set SATA as AHCI... OK. This time it booted windows OK. The only thing I ever changed in the BIOS was to get it to boot USB CDROM first. Hmmm.... something fishy about BIOS. Dare I try repeating this?

Powered off for few hours, back on, stuck at AHCI init again. Waited it out, back into BIOS, defaulted BIOS, reboot? --black screen, wouldn't even POST. power off, power on, eventually got BIOS, YES to set to AHCI, back in AHCI drive init...
You see why I am going nuts! Have no clue what is wrong with this [these] things.
...Next time I rebooted, Windows came up fine! HELP!
 
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Saga Lout

Saga Lout

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In the BIOS settings pages, find AHCI and see if the alternative IDE is availabe. If it is, try that one.

If you get in, kill hibernation using an elevated Command Prompt to type
powercfg hibernaate off
then press Enter. They made it difficult to do in Settings even with God Mode.
 
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pccitizen

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Thanks. I left PC on overnite [no sleep], and this morning it was still there... I turned hibernate off. Not sure if sleep is hibernate? It does have an IDE option. I will try that if it fails again. Will wait this out some more..
 
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Saga Lout

Saga Lout

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Sleep is a different level and you can make your choices in Control Panel>Power Options. When the machine is permanently powered by mains electricity, I always choose "Never".

Modern systems require a light touch on the power button before tapping any key to bring the machine out of sleep but I'm certain you already knew that.
 
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pccitizen

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"Restarted" a few times, no problem.. Powered off, left off. Came back, power on, stuck at AHCI init, hit DEL hoping it would go into setup eventually so I could try the IDE. Came back and it said "Loading Operating System' [never seen that one before - stuck there. Hit the reset button, and it booted OK. Can't believe this thing. Almost like the drive doesn't power up sometimes. But I have tried diff power supply/mobo/disk drive. My wife was using this win10 upgrade for several months before it exhibited this behavior. Restarted a few more times OK. Power down now.
 
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pccitizen

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Powered it off, left it. Came back, stuck in AHCI init. This time I got it into setup and changed the AHCI to IDE Native.
It booted. Let's see how stable this is......
 
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pccitizen

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No, this started couple months ago. This morning, powered on OK with IDE config. Did a couple restarts OK, powered down. Came back a few hours later and now it won't find the "IDE" drive [AHCI changed to IDE]. --Stuck at "loading Operating Systrm" Powered down, back on. This time, VERY slow and the BIOS screens did not appear at all, just jumped into Spinning circle. Did another restart and it came up normal. I am ready to give up, this is a haunted PC somehow. Power/BIOS/Proc somehow. Trash all this hardware and start again... Never had so many problems that I can't solve. Thanks for your advice.
 
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pccitizen

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Ahhhh. I had forgotten about that! OK, one last try!! It has been about 3 or 4 years for this battery. I guess I was convinced that there was flash in there and battery was only necessary for the clock? It never lost the clock. Maybe it's a combination.
 
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pccitizen

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One last thot. I have replaced the battery, and it has not failed, at least on IDE mode. Don't know how that could really have anything to do with it, given that it never lost the clock. Will keep it in my shop for another week or two.
 
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pccitizen

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I just tried going back to SATA/AHCI in the BIOS and windows could not boot. Looks like it is Native IDE from now on, for whatever reason. Another mystery unsolved.... sigh.
 
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pccitizen

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This morning, it booted once on native IDE, but then after a power down/restart it would not recognize drive in the BIOS, even after repeated resets. All on new CMOS battery. Beginning to think this is a processor problem.. Guess I could order a new processor if I want to pursue this.. Never seems to fail AFTER it has been up and running.
 
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