What would cause an internal HD to simply disappear in Windows?

Yousuf Khan · Mar 21, 2010

Something strange just happened recently, under Windows 7, although I
have seen it happen under Windows XP before too. A hard drive that's
internal (i.e. always there, not physically removable), just disappeared
from Windows sight. No longer accessible, HD Sentinel didn't see it
either. Rebooted, and everything was fine, it came back. But there were
no warnings in SMART about that drive. Is there something in the Windows
logs that I can see about this?

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan · Mar 21, 2010

Yousuf said:
Something strange just happened recently, under Windows 7, although I
have seen it happen under Windows XP before too. A hard drive that's
internal (i.e. always there, not physically removable), just disappeared
from Windows sight. No longer accessible, HD Sentinel didn't see it
either. Rebooted, and everything was fine, it came back. But there were
no warnings in SMART about that drive. Is there something in the Windows
logs that I can see about this?

Yousuf Khan

Looks like I found the message I was looking for in the Windows event
log. It looks like I was experiencing simultaneous problems with a SATA
hard disk and an IDE DVD drive (although that's weird since there was
nothing inside the DVD drive at the time). I saw the following messages:

Disk Error message:

Log Name: System
Source: Disk
Date: 21/03/2010 7:31:57 AM
Event ID: 15
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: desktop-yjk_w7
Description:
The device, \Device\Harddisk1\DR1, is not ready for access yet.

ATAPI Error message:

Rod Speed · Mar 21, 2010

Yousuf Khan wrote

Something strange just happened recently, under Windows 7, although I have seen it happen under Windows XP before too.
A hard drive that's internal (i.e. always there, not physically removable), just
disappeared from Windows sight. No longer accessible, HD Sentinel
didn't see it either. Rebooted, and everything was fine, it came back.

You do sometimes see memory leaks in XP produce that result.

Normally you have to be quite a while between reboots to see that,
or be running something that produces memory leaks very badly.

But there were no warnings in SMART about that drive.

Because it was nothing to do with the drive, just the OS.

Is there something in the Windows logs that I can see about this?

Yes, you should be able to see evidence of memory leaks in
there when the lack of free memory becomes quite severe.

Rod Speed · Mar 21, 2010

Yousuf Khan wrote

Yousuf Khan wrote

Looks like I found the message I was looking for in the Windows event log. It looks like I was experiencing
simultaneous problems with a SATA hard disk and an IDE DVD drive (although that's weird since there was nothing inside
the DVD drive at the time). I saw the following messages:

Disk Error message:

ATAPI Error message:

It may have been a glitch with your IDE/SATA converter.

Yousuf Khan · Mar 21, 2010

Rod said:
You do sometimes see memory leaks in XP produce that result.

Normally you have to be quite a while between reboots to see that,
or be running something that produces memory leaks very badly.

Well, I do tend to run this system like a server. It's usually up for
weeks at a time, 24 hours/day. The main app that runs on it during this
time is a bittorrent client.

Because it was nothing to do with the drive, just the OS.

I'd have thought at least some kind of CRC error increment or something.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan · Mar 21, 2010

Rod said:
It may have been a glitch with your IDE/SATA converter.

Not possible, none of these drives has anything to do with the IDE/SATA
converters. The drive that disappeared briefly was a native SATA drive
connected via SATA, and the optical drives are all IDE running through
IDE. In fact, the converted IDE/SATA drives are running beautifully, no
problems whatsoever.

This is why it was so strange, the optical drives are all IDE now, and
the hard drives are all running through SATA now. There should be no
connection between the optical drives and the hard drives -- totally
separate controllers.

Yousuf Khan

Rod Speed · Mar 21, 2010

Yousuf Khan wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Well, I do tend to run this system like a server. It's usually up for
weeks at a time, 24 hours/day. The main app that runs on it during
this time is a bittorrent client.

Thats certainly the situation where you see memory leaks with XP.

I run like that myself and eventually see some problem, usually that
I cant have as much stuff open at once as I can just after a reboot.

The most recent reboot was because the menus in OE went missing.

I'd have thought at least some kind of CRC error increment or something.

That doesnt see a drive go missing, just sees DMA turned off and PIO used instead.

Arno · Mar 22, 2010

Well, I do tend to run this system like a server. It's usually up for
weeks at a time, 24 hours/day. The main app that runs on it during this
time is a bittorrent client.

I'd have thought at least some kind of CRC error increment or something.

If the error was entierly with the controller, the drive may
never have seen any problem.

Arno

calypso · Mar 22, 2010

Yousuf Khan said:
Something strange just happened recently, under Windows 7, although I
have seen it happen under Windows XP before too. A hard drive that's
internal (i.e. always there, not physically removable), just disappeared
from Windows sight. No longer accessible, HD Sentinel didn't see it
either. Rebooted, and everything was fine, it came back. But there were
no warnings in SMART about that drive. Is there something in the Windows
logs that I can see about this?

Try to replace your cables... You said that you have seen this behaviour on
XP and now on Win7... Often the most stupid thing is giving you the
headaches and produces those 'ghosty' behaviour nobody can understand...

--
Indijanaco izbacuje sepav krekeru podjebavu za pet minuta
u mesnici ? By runf

Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
http://inovator.blog.hr
http://calypso-innovations.blogspot.com/

Yousuf Khan · Mar 22, 2010

Arno said:
If the error was entierly with the controller, the drive may
never have seen any problem.

Well, considering that the error showed up with both an IDE and a SATA
drive, it may have something to do with the motherboard's disk
controller subsystem. It was just something transient, because I just
did a warm reboot (i.e. no power-off) and it fixed it.

This system is now running Win7 rather than XP, so it might be a driver
issue too.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan · Mar 22, 2010

Try to replace your cables... You said that you have seen this behaviour on
XP and now on Win7... Often the most stupid thing is giving you the
headaches and produces those 'ghosty' behaviour nobody can understand...

In the case of the IDE cables, that had already been tried before, and
it made no difference. Haven't really tried it with the SATA cables, but
none of these SATA cables are from the same batch, they were all
independently obtained as drives were added.

Would the number of drives in the system be a problem here? I got 5
internal hard drives (all SATA), 3 external hard drives (1 eSATA, 2
USB), plus 2 optical drives (all IDE). I got a 650W PSU for it.

Yousuf Khan

Grant · Mar 22, 2010

In the case of the IDE cables, that had already been tried before, and
it made no difference. Haven't really tried it with the SATA cables, but
none of these SATA cables are from the same batch, they were all
independently obtained as drives were added.

Would the number of drives in the system be a problem here? I got 5
internal hard drives (all SATA), 3 external hard drives (1 eSATA, 2
USB), plus 2 optical drives (all IDE). I got a 650W PSU for it.

Depends how the PSU divvies up the 12V rail. Spinning up eight drives
might be too much for it? Measure 12V rail on startup. If you not using
high power draw graphics card, you could power some HDDs from that 12V
connection.

Whatever happened to staggered spinup? Old SCSI drives used to do it,
but I dunno if there's a BIOS option for that.

Grant.

Rod Speed · Mar 22, 2010

Yousuf said:
In the case of the IDE cables, that had already been tried before, and
it made no difference. Haven't really tried it with the SATA cables,
but none of these SATA cables are from the same batch, they were all
independently obtained as drives were added.

Would the number of drives in the system be a problem here?

Unlikely given that a warm boot fixed it.

Grant · Mar 22, 2010

Unlikely given that a warm boot fixed it.

Draw more power when they're cold? Does reboot spin down the drives?
(I forgot).

Grant.

calypso · Mar 22, 2010

Yousuf Khan said:
In the case of the IDE cables, that had already been tried before, and
it made no difference. Haven't really tried it with the SATA cables, but
none of these SATA cables are from the same batch, they were all
independently obtained as drives were added.

Would the number of drives in the system be a problem here? I got 5
internal hard drives (all SATA), 3 external hard drives (1 eSATA, 2
USB), plus 2 optical drives (all IDE). I got a 650W PSU for it.

5 internal SATA drives? Which power supply you've got? Brand is what I'd
like to know...

External drives have their own PSU, so they don't count... But 5 internal
drives + 2 optical drives could be the problem, even on 650W PSU if it's
low-quality... But somehow, I think you've got a good PSU...

So, you said that only one drive were disappearing or it's something random
and every drive disappears from time to time?

--
U zraku kakao gnjeci suncokretov kokaog ljubija uvijek ?
By runf

Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
http://inovator.blog.hr
http://calypso-innovations.blogspot.com/

calypso · Mar 22, 2010

Draw more power when they're cold? Does reboot spin down the drives?
(I forgot).

Loose soldering joint on some specific drive?

--
"Drazesans li kaktuso jede ?" upita cizmao udise kukuruzo pije.
"Nisam ja nikog bombardiro !" rece Bugara povraca "Ja samo partizno podmazuje naklonjenm !"
By runf

Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
http://inovator.blog.hr
http://calypso-innovations.blogspot.com/

Rod Speed · Mar 23, 2010

Grant wrote

Draw more power when they're cold?

He appears to have said that the drives went away well after
the initial reboot, and then came back after a warm boot, so
there shouldnt have been any time when they were cold
because he says he leaves the system on all the time.

Does reboot spin down the drives? (I forgot).

No it doesnt with ATA drives.

Rod Speed · Mar 23, 2010

Loose soldering joint on some specific drive?

It wasnt just one drive that went missing.

bbbl67 · Mar 23, 2010

5 internal SATA drives? Which power supply you've got? Brand is what I'd
like to know...

It's a Zalman. The same people who make those fancy overclocker heat
sinks for processors.

External drives have their own PSU, so they don't count... But 5 internal
drives + 2 optical drives could be the problem, even on 650W PSU if it's
low-quality... But somehow, I think you've got a good PSU...

It's a quad-rail PSU. Sorry, it's not a 650W, it's a 600W PSU, my
mistake. No matter, that's just Zalman's conservative rating, another
manufacturer, OCZ, repackages the same PSU and rates it at 700W.

I did have a problem with low-quality PSU's in the past, I used to go
for cheap 400W units based on price mostly, until I started noticing
that certain instabilities were being caused. So I decided to properly
invest in this one, this time. However, even still, a single 12V rail
can only supply upto 18.5A, which is 222W. I think two of those rails
are dedicated to the motherboard, and one for a high-end video card
(don't have one of those), and the rest for anything else, which
probably means the hard drives. Is 222W enough? I would've thought so.

So, you said that only one drive were disappearing or it's something random
and every drive disappears from time to time?

It just happened once, it isn't a recurring thing (yet). But once is
enough in this case. It's not supposed to do that at all, not unless
the drive itself dies which didn't happen.

Yousuf Khan

Rod Speed · Mar 23, 2010

bbbl67 said:
It's a Zalman. The same people who make those fancy overclocker heat
sinks for processors.

It's a quad-rail PSU. Sorry, it's not a 650W, it's a 600W PSU, my
mistake. No matter, that's just Zalman's conservative rating, another
manufacturer, OCZ, repackages the same PSU and rates it at 700W.

I did have a problem with low-quality PSU's in the past, I used to go
for cheap 400W units based on price mostly, until I started noticing
that certain instabilities were being caused. So I decided to properly
invest in this one, this time. However, even still, a single 12V rail
can only supply upto 18.5A, which is 222W. I think two of those rails
are dedicated to the motherboard, and one for a high-end video card
(don't have one of those), and the rest for anything else, which
probably means the hard drives. Is 222W enough? I would've thought so.

It just happened once, it isn't a recurring thing (yet). But once is
enough in this case. It's not supposed to do that at all, not unless
the drive itself dies which didn't happen.

Thats also a classic with memory leak problems, they dont
happen that often, only after quite a while after the reboot.