Hard drive invisible after long "power off"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter
  • Start date Start date
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Peter

My hard drive (Western Digital 40GB WD400EB) is not visible after a long
"power off" situation, I mean when the server is off for a few hours.
My system is a Windows 2000 server SP 4.

Ive' noticed 3 things when my drive is invisible in explorer;

1. The drive is visible in the BIOS
2. The drive is visible in Device Manager
3. The drive is INVISIBLE in Disk Managment

The only way for me to solve it is by disconnecting the IDE cable to the
drive, rconnecting it and rebooting the system. Yes, weird...
Looks like the drive is in some sort of locked state...

If the drive is visible, then everything works fine; I can read AND write
data. The drive doesn't contain WD's EZ-Bios.
I've formatted and partitioned the drive a few time, but that didn't solve
anything.

Btw, the drive is Master on IDE-2 and contains no operating system, only
data.

IDE1 contains two WD drives, of which one contains the operating system.

I looked for days on Google and the web (including Western Digital's
support) but couldn't find any solution.

Thanks in advance
 
Peter said:
My hard drive (Western Digital 40GB WD400EB) is not visible after a long
"power off" situation, I mean when the server is off for a few hours.
My system is a Windows 2000 server SP 4.

Ive' noticed 3 things when my drive is invisible in explorer;

1. The drive is visible in the BIOS
2. The drive is visible in Device Manager
3. The drive is INVISIBLE in Disk Managment

The only way for me to solve it is by disconnecting the IDE cable to the
drive, rconnecting it and rebooting the system. Yes, weird...
Looks like the drive is in some sort of locked state...

If the drive is visible, then everything works fine; I can read AND write
data. The drive doesn't contain WD's EZ-Bios.
I've formatted and partitioned the drive a few time, but that didn't solve
anything.

Btw, the drive is Master on IDE-2 and contains no operating system, only
data.

IDE1 contains two WD drives, of which one contains the operating system.

I looked for days on Google and the web (including Western Digital's
support) but couldn't find any solution.

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
By any chance do you have that drive set to power down when idle? I've had
problems, although not recently, with SCSI drives that were slow to start up
after being spun down causing the OS to declare them missing in action.
Worth a look anyway...
--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]

Return address will not work. Please
reply in group or through my website:
http://johnmcgaw.com
 
Thanks John,

I already had a look at it, but I might give it another try; maybe I missed
something.
The weird things is that the system doesn't cause me any problems if I power
it down for a few minutes, only after a few hours weird things are
happening... like something electrical is discharging...
 
Thanks John,

I already had a look at it, but I might give it another try; maybe I missed
something.
The weird things is that the system doesn't cause me any problems if I power
it down for a few minutes, only after a few hours weird things are
happening... like something electrical is discharging...
Click to expand...
Reckon it could be the cmos battery?
Bill
 
Sounds like the drive is not ready when the system comes up. I know
multiple SCSI drives can take time to power up on a SCSI chain but yours is
IDE. Never heard of this.

I would run the manufacturers diags from Western Digital to verify that the
drive is okay.

Try changing the IDE cable if possible.

Try moving to another IDE port. See if the problem moves around.

Please provide more info like the setup. Is it master on the 2ndary IDE
with a CD or CD-R as slave ?

When did this start? You just added the drive?? Has it been running stable
for a long time? Make any changes ??? hardware or software. Any recent
serious crashes.

It could be Win 200 acting up but I don't know 2000.

Could just be the drive is hooped or the motherboard.
 
I solved it!!

I opened my computer, took the drive out, took it in my right arm, moved in
front of a wall and like a baseball pitcher I threw it... a big bang... the
thing was definitely gone this time... went to the store... bought a new
hard drive and everything works again!

I didn't even bother about the ****ing warranty!
No more Western Digital for me... shit drives! (too many bad experiences)

And my Server? It runs more smoothly than ever! ha!
 
I must admit that there have been times I have considered your solution. Thanks
for the laugh and glad you resolved the problem!
-steve
 
Peter said:
I solved it!!

I opened my computer, took the drive out, took it in my right arm, moved in
front of a wall and like a baseball pitcher I threw it... a big bang... the
thing was definitely gone this time... went to the store... bought a new
hard drive and everything works again!

I didn't even bother about the ****ing warranty!
No more Western Digital for me... shit drives! (too many bad experiences)

And my Server? It runs more smoothly than ever! ha!
Click to expand...
Um, not need for the swearing.

I used WD drives in my old Amiga, the one was fine, but the second one
started to have problems after a few months.
I now use Seagate when i can, they may be a little slower than some, but
they are reliable. Maxtor have also improved a lot, there was a time
when they was noisy and a bit unrealiable. But i know someone who got a
maxtor and been using it for almost 3 years now and no problems what so
ever.
 
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