Hard drive not found

[bixon_032]

Hey guys got a situation..
Worked 14 hours today and all i wanted to do was come home, unwind with a good bourbon and play some BF3...
Clicked on my shortcut to bf3 and got this message. "The drive or network connection that the shortcut bf3.ink refers to is
unavailable" Tried a couple of other things only to find out my computer is no longer reading my E: drive.
I went to my computer and the only drives showing is my C: drive and D: drive.. which would be my boot up and my DVD drives. It worked fine yesterday evening and today it is not. When I rebooted my computer it shows the E: drive in boot up but not after it gets to windows? What should I do before i go to ripping the drive out and replacing it.. I built this computer in February this year..
Specs
Asus Maximus IV extreme z
I5 2500k 4.8
Asus Gtx 570 dcII 960 mhz
2 Samsung 830 64g (boot up and apps) in raid 0
Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s (Games and Game videos)
Thermaltake spinq VT
Thermaltake Level 10 GT
ASUS VH236H Black 23" 2ms Full HD Widescreen LCD Monitor
Logitech g19
Gskill Rip Jaws SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
SeaSonic X-SERIES X-1050

Appreciate the help guys!

 

[rolli59]

Is it shown in BIOS? Is it in Disk management? http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/265764-32-guide-installed-disk-system

 

[bixon_032]

Is it shown in BIOS? Is it in Disk management? http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/265764-32-guide-installed-disk-system

Rolli,
Thanks for the reply. That is correct it is not showing in disk management but it is in Bios. It has been running fine since Feb this year. I did not think to check my South Bridge though. I am at work right now but i can check that this afternoon when i get home.

 

[rolli59]

Maybe a BIOS reset disabled a controller.

 

[Paperdoc]

If it shows in BIOS, it REALLY ought to be seen in Disk Management, but only if you look in the right place.

In Disk Management there are two panes on the right. Each of them SCROLLS so you can see all their contents.

The upper right pane shows you all the drives that Windows can use now. The LOWER RIGHT pane shows you these PLUS any valid hardware that Windows does not yet understand. Make sure to scroll though this pane to find your missing E: drive. Normally each HDD is represented by one horizontal block. At its left end is a small sub-block with some info: a name like DISK 1, a type like Basic, a size in GB, and a Status like Online. To the right is one (or more) sub-blocks, each representing a Partition on this device, and each containing further info. This will be: a disk name you gave it, like "MyData", a letter name in brackets like (E: ), a Partition size in GB, a File System like "NTFS", and a status like "Healthy".

Now, what does it show there?
1. If the Partition has no letter name like (E: ) assigned to it but the rest of the info looks OK, you can RIGHT-click on the Partition block and assign a letter name to it. Then back out of Disk Management and reboot for the Registry to be updated.
2. If it has a letter name, but the File System is "RAW", the MOST common reason is a bit of corruption of some data in the Partition Table or maybe the Root directory, and Windows simply can't understand what to do. All your data on the disk are VERY likely still there. In this case, back out of Disk Management and do NOT try to do any work on the drive or write to it until the problem has bee resolved properly.

How? Look around here and elsewhere on the web for way to recover from a RAW Format disk. Usually this involves getting third-party software (paid or free) used for Data Recovery, such as GetDataBack for NTFS, Recuva, Easeus, etc. To use these, you need (temporarily) a spare HDD, because the software allows you to COPY ALL of your recovered files onto a second HDD safely before you try to fix the problem on the "faulty" HDD. Then you can copy the data back to the fixed HDD. In MOST such cases, "fixing" the "faulty" HDD is not big problem - it never had a hardware fault anyway, it was just a small bit of corrupted data.

Let us know what Disk Management's LOWER RIGHT pane shows you, and what you can do, OR what help you need to proceed.