HDD Disappears

VH770

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Jul 31, 2011
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18,510
Hello,

Hopefully this forum can help me. I've read through the helpful thread found here as I'm having similar (but not identical) issues. The thread has been set to "solved" but unfortunately I don't think it's fair to say that, because the solution offered in the thread (posted over a year ago) now does not work. I have:

GA-EP35-DS3 mobo (yep, fairly old)
E6600 intel cpu
coolermaster 850W psu
6GB kingston ram (2x2gb + 2x1gb)
4 x HDD's (80gb for windows 7 64bit, 2TB, 1TB, 1TB)
Windows 7 64bit

Both the 80GB and two 1TB drives work fine and never cause any trouble/disappear. they are about 1-2 years old each, and are both SATA2 (80GB is SATA). Obviously nothing is wrong with normal operation of the OS because it's on the 80GB drive which doesn't seem to have any trouble.

the 2TB drive (bought within the last few months, SATA2) does not work properly anymore. With Windows XP it worked fine, then after installing windows 7 (64bit) I started out with no trouble, working fine, then one day about two weeks into the install it just starts to disappear in the middle of normal computer use... one minute you're listening to music stored on that drive, then the next, your media player crashes, music stops, and you realise the drive isn't there anymore. So with this disappearing act, at that stage the only way I could get the drive to work is if I rebooted. It would then appear as though nothing ever went wrong, but ultimately the drive would eventually disappear again, prompting another reboot if you want to access its files. At that time I performed a defrag and I also did CHKDSK (which found some errors, but reported to repair them). I also downloaded the WD diagnostic and ran that for the drive, with an error message result. While frustrating, it wasn't a huge problem for me until today as the drive has now become unrecognisable even after a reboot. I can now no longer see the drive at all, even if I reboot. I'm guessing something more sinister has resulted from all the initial trouble, perhaps the drive is cactus.

I read the thread linked to above which basically talks about many people having trouble with all sizes of SATA drives (500GB up to 2TB) as they are just disappearing from view completely and do not show up until the system is rebooted (not visible in device manager/my computer/EVEREST, nothing). Some users observe it is a result of them first entering into sleep mode and then not seeing the drive after waking, others observe that the disappearance happens during normal operation (like me). All users are able to restore access to the drive by rebooting. Microsoft recognised there was a problem and released a hotfix in 2009...

I first downloaded the 64bit (windows7) hotfix and when run, the executable suggests that "this hotfix doesn't apply to your system" (I can't remember the syntax exactly, but it's something like that). So effectively I can't install the hotfix. Whether or not it would solve my problem I don't know.

I have flashed BIOS to the most recent version, I have tried different SATA ports/cables, I have left the other 1TB drives disconnected and just tried to get the system to recognise the 2TB drive at all, but now it wont even do that. I may try a USB to SATA connector if I can find one.

any ideas how I can get the drive to (a) show up at all, and ultimately (b) stop disappearing?

thanks in advance :)