Disappearing hard disk

[spritemv]

I am running Vista 32 and have separate hard disks for my OS/programs, storage, and backup. Over the past week or two my storage hard disk has been disappearing from My Computer at random time intervals. However, it would reappear each time I rebooted my computer. Early today it disappeared and later reappeared with a window asking me how to play the files on the disk (as if I had just plugged in a flash drive). Now it is gone again but it is not reappearing with a reboot.

I just went to Management > Windows Logs > System and found a stack of warnings. Source: disk, Event ID: 57. It says "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\DR2 during a paging operation."

Binary data:

In Words

0000: 00680003 00000001 00000000 80040033
0008: 0000012D C000000E 00000000 00000000
0010: 00000000 00000000 00092ACC 00000000
0018: FFFFFFFF 00000001 08000040 00000100
0020: 120A2000 40200340 00008000 0000003C
0028: 00000000 8689BB50 00000000 86968328
0030: 88A60D50 131D1F10 1D130028 0000101F
0038: 00000040 00000000 00000000 00000000
0040: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000


In Bytes

0000: 03 00 68 00 01 00 00 00 ..h.....
0008: 00 00 00 00 33 00 04 80 ....3..€
0010: 2D 01 00 00 0E 00 00 C0 -......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: CC 2A 09 00 00 00 00 00 Ì*......
0030: FF FF FF FF 01 00 00 00 ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 08 00 01 00 00 @.......
0040: 00 20 0A 12 40 03 20 40 . ..@. @
0048: 00 80 00 00 3C 00 00 00 .€..<...
0050: 00 00 00 00 50 BB 89 86 ....P»‰†
0058: 00 00 00 00 28 83 96 86 ....(ƒ–†
0060: 50 0D A6 88 10 1F 1D 13 P.¦ˆ....
0068: 28 00 13 1D 1F 10 00 00 (.......
0070: 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 @.......
0078: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

A few minutes before this, I have a few errors. Source: disk, Event ID: 15. It says "The device, \Device\Harddisk2\DR2, is not ready for access yet."

Binary data:

In Words

0000: 00680004 00000001 00000000 C004000F
0008: 00000104 C000009D 00000000 00000000
0010: 00000000 00000000 00092ACC 00000000
0018: FFFFFFFF 00000001 0A000040 00000100
0020: 120A2000 40200180 00000000 0000003C
0028: 85359000 856102C8 00000000 88935AB0
0030: 8537B600 0061C378 6100082A 000078C3
0038: 00000008 00000000 00000000 00000000
0040: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000


In Bytes

0000: 04 00 68 00 01 00 00 00 ..h.....
0008: 00 00 00 00 0F 00 04 C0 .......À
0010: 04 01 00 00 9D 00 00 C0 ......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: CC 2A 09 00 00 00 00 00 Ì*......
0030: FF FF FF FF 01 00 00 00 ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 0A 00 01 00 00 @.......
0040: 00 20 0A 12 80 01 20 40 . ..€. @
0048: 00 00 00 00 3C 00 00 00 ....<...
0050: 00 90 35 85 C8 02 61 85 .5…È.a…
0058: 00 00 00 00 B0 5A 93 88 ....°Z“ˆ
0060: 00 B6 37 85 78 C3 61 00 .¶7…xÃa.
0068: 2A 08 00 61 C3 78 00 00 *..aÃx..
0070: 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0078: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

I'm not sure if the hard drive is failing, the mobo is failing, or if it's a software problem. Anyone have any ideas? I need to figure this out soon because my wedding slideshow is on the disk and my wedding is in only 2 days!

Thanks!

 

[spritemv]

By the way, it looks like the drive is showing up in the BIOS. Perhaps this means it's a software problem?

 

[evongugg]

Run hard disk diagnostics from the manufacturer of the hard disk.

 

[evongugg]

Check the power and data cables. Better replace the data cable and try another power cable.

 

[leon2006]

image your drive or back-up your data before the drive goes undetected permanently.

 

[spritemv]

I'll try the diagnostics first. Under Device Manager the device status is "This device is working properly."

I do have an image that was made about a week ago so I won't lose everything. However, I would love the latest version of my wedding slideshow...

 

[spritemv]

Nevermind on the Device Manager... I was mistaken. Only my system and backup drives are showing up.

 

[spritemv]

I tried running the Samsung Hutil210 disk utility software by booting from CD, but my computer wouldn't let me because it said something about not being able to install the CD-ROM drivers. Hm..

 

[shabaa]

Did you download the ISO and burn an ISO disc? Are you using a SATA CD Drive? use the fdd exe if you have a floppy. (Yeah, I know it's old. But they still use it!)

 

[spritemv]

I burned the ISO to a disc, but I have an older IDE DVD-RW drive. I don't have a floppy so I can't use the fdd.

I tried replacing the cables without any luck. The drive just won't show up anymore. I hope it's not dead!

 

[evongugg]

Is it showing in the bios?
If not, it is dead.

 

[spritemv]

Well, the drive wasn't showing up in the bios so I presumed it was dead. I purchased a new 2TB WD Green to use as a backup drive with the plan of moving my old 1TB backup drive to replace the dead storage drive. Yesterday I unplugged what I thought was the dead drive and plugged in the new 2TB one. After booting, I realized I had accidentally unplugged the 1TB instead of the dead one. I then turned the machine back off and swapped the 1TB back in for the dead drive. However, this time my system wouldn't boot.

I get the message "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key."

At this point I thought I had made another mistake. My system drive is identical to my dead storage one so I thought I had accidentally unplugged the system drive while leaving in the dead drive again. After swapping the two drives, I tried to boot again and got the same message. Finally, in my drive confusion, I plugged in the drives one at a time and loaded into the bios to see if the system was recognizing them. Neither my old system drive nor dead storage drive showed up. I tried using different SATA cables, power cables, and SATA ports on the mobo without success. Both sometimes make a clicking noise when I power up the computer. When I did the same with the 1TB and 2TB drives, they both show up in the bios, but they obviously didn't boot since Windows is not installed on them.

I'm now beginning to think that BOTH my system drive and storage drive have just failed, but I find this hard to believe. Doesn't it sound pretty unusual for both drives to fail at once? The system drive seemed to be working fine until yesterday. Does anyone have any thoughts as to what's going on? I hate to have to buy another new HD...

 

[spritemv]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I still can't get the Samsung drive diagnostic boot disc to work due to the lack of DVD-ROM drivers or something.