sata drive disappears from '(my) computer'

[qrias]

i'm using vista rc1 x64. i initially installed this os onto my 200gb sata drive, but keopt having booting problems, namely, the missing BOOTMGR error. this was usually solved by turning the computer off and then on again (not just a restart). at worst, i would run the boot repair app on the vista disc. i also have a 80gb pata drive connected. i started to receive errors while attempting to transfer files from one disc to the other, pointing towards the fact that the sata drive did not exist (although this seems really weird now, given that the os was running from that drive) and iirc, on checking 'computer', the disk drive had disappeared. one time the problem got so bad that i decided to reinstall vista (the good thing is that i knew it would keep all my old files in 'windows.old'). while doing this, i realised that my pata drive was recognised as hd0 (or the equivalent) and i decided to just install vista onto that to get rid of the problems. so now im running vista off the pata and have never had a BOOTMGR missing error with this config. i can access files and run progs. from the sata and it appears in 'computer' and all is well, until i want to transfer files from the pata to the sata. the transfer gets interrupted and then when i look in 'computer', the sata drive is missing. while writing this, i realised that i don't think that i have checked the jumpers on the pata drive - the whole master/slave thing - (which i will do, next chance i get) however, maybe this is not relevant to this problem, and especially given that i only have these two drives attached, obviously with their own individual cables. i usually google my problems and find them, however, this one is a bit more of a pain. i have an asus p5w dh motherboard (975x) with latest bios etc. is this problem more closely related to the newness of the motherboard, the fact that i am using vista RC1 or somthing to do with the jumpers (or other). anyone else had similar problems or heard of this one? thanks in anticipation.

[twitmer]

I have what sounds like the same problem here. I installed a second Seagate 7.2K 500GB SATA-II HDD on my box. It shows up in My Computer and I am able to use it, but it "disappears" frequently and often hangs during file transfer ops.

I thought the drive was defective so I exchanged it for a new one, but still have the same problem.

Problem Details:

- Bios recognizes the drive
- Able to format and partition in vista 64bit (NFTS)
- Single Partition Used
- Drive is still powered & spinning after it disappears.
- Drive reappears after rebooting
- Most recent drivers installed for SATA controller
- SATA Cable replaced
- Jumpers are set correctly (no jumper for slave)

If you've found a solution to this problem I'd appreciate a post, I'm out of ideas.

System Specs:
ASUS P5B-VM (Micro-Atx)
Core2 Duo 6320 1.8GHz
2G RAM (512MB x 4)
EVGA 7600GT 512 gddr3
Vista Ultimate 64-bit

[chris5126]

me to with a maxtor (now segate) your one isnt a maxtor or segate is it qrais? I have sent mine back to segate and the replacement has been dispatched but this is my third one! Mine would show up in my computer under the manage function but would not format properly or when it did would have serious drive errors. Maybe there is some vista compatibiltiy issues. I take it both of u have done firmware upgrades and used segate tools to test the drives!!

[schuster_md]

Hi Guys:
I wanted you to know that I have the same problem and I have made several changes in my computer to try to solve it. I think that always happens to the 2nd drive (not the boot one) I have changed windows XP to Vista (biggest mistake) and it keeps happening. I changed my MOBO from a Asus p5ad2-e premium to a Commando and started again. I upgraded the BIOS to the latest one and the same crap. I changed the hard drive from a Maxtor to a WD Sata II and it keeps doing it!
I learned that if you change the sata port on the MOBO the HD reappears for a while.
If you change the setup of the Bios from enhanced - Sata mode to enhanced - IDE mode, the HD appears and if fully detected but you can't use the computer as the OS doesn't load (I assume that because you installed it in SATA mode)
So my conclusion is that the drive is working, the sata port works but there is a conflict with a 2nd SATA drive and the MOBO that I can't resolve. It is strange that it doesn't happen instantly but after you use the computer for a while.
I also have seen that the speed of the 2nd HD when it is still detected start to decrease to a ridiculous transfer rate (working with VISTA OS) and in the next reboot it's not there anymore.
What could be happening?

[Crackity Jones]

I had the same issue and I believe I figured it out. I had the same problem myself: Switch on PC, both disks are fine. After a little while, my second disk (d-drive) "dissappears". It drove me nuts.
I have an Asus P5K mobo. After digging deep into windows disk manager, BIOS, etc. I decided to open up my PC and switch the connections of the disks on the mobo to see if that would help. Then when I looked into the manual of the mobo I noticed a remark that the System disk MUST be on SATA 1 or 2 and the Data disk MUST be on SATA 3 or 4. I followed this instruction and everything works just fine again. Hope this helps.

[mallan]

I had the same problem, I installed 2 new samsung 750gb HD's and when I tried to transfer any data from the C drive to one of the others or do a system backup, I had 1 of the drives disappear matter what I did.
I had connected them up in SATA 1 for C and 2 &3 for the others so I removed the SATA 2 connection on the MB ad pluged it in to SATA 4 and hey presto, everything now works fine.
That was after many hours of studying forums.

Thank you Crackity Jones.

Mallian

[pcarew]

January 2009

I have the same issue on a HP DV9810us Laptop running Vista SP1.

On this laptop, if I put a Western Digital 120G hard drive in the second bay, it dissapears when resuming from sleep.

I discovered that if I put a Toshiba 120G drive in the second bay instead, this problem doesn't appear!!

With the WD drive, I tried setting the sleep time to "Never", but this didn't make any difference.

On further investigation (both drives are known to be good), it turns out that the WD drive use the default Microsoft SATA device handler, where as the Toshiba drive uses it's own device driver.

This definitely points to a MS SATA device driver issue.

MS SATA Driver details:
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Driver Date: 6/21/2006

I tried running "Driver Update", but Microsoft reported that this was the most up to date driver at this time (January 14th 2009)

Western Digital doesn't provide any updated drivers (or any drivers for that matter) from their web site.

[DoBe]

This happen to me. I think i found a way to repair it. I am running vista with three hard disk. The one that went missing was a maxtor 200gb sata. I went to device manager and I could see the drive there but did not why i could not see it in my computer. I tried disable, uninstall, reinstall, unhook, and hook up. Got mad and forgot and did some other stuff on the computer. Then i found computer manager, and wow. I was looking and i see that the hard disk lost it letter some how and needed formatted again. Did that because the uninstall, and reinstall. After a very long format it worked.

[pcarew]

Unfortunately in my situation, when the disk drive dissapears, it vanishes out of the Disk Manager as well. There is not a trace of it anywhere until the laptop is rebooted.

This happen to me. I think i found a way to repair it. I am running vista with three hard disk. The one that went missing was a maxtor 200gb sata. I went to device manager and I could see the drive there but did not why i could not see it in my computer. I tried disable, uninstall, reinstall, unhook, and hook up. Got mad and forgot and did some other stuff on the computer. Then i found computer manager, and wow. I was looking and i see that the hard disk lost it letter some how and needed formatted again. Did that because the uninstall, and reinstall. After a very long format it worked.

[klaxis]

There seems to be a few separate problems on this board. Here's what I had:
SATA 320Gb seagate on vista ultimate. Within a day it disappears with error messages from the programs previously running off it. The drive shows up in every check outside of windows, but it doesn't show up in "my computer" or in disk manager...

I notice hours later that there's a floppy drive in "my computer" but this computer never has a floppy... I disabled the phantom floppy in "device manager", refresh the list, and magically the drive reappears...

Any one else having this problem, or is this a unique case?

[fb1]

Ihad the disappearing hard drive issue and tried this solution a couple of months ago with no luck. I then had a closer look at my MOBO and saw that I had plugged the second drive into SATA5. I swtiched it with a CD-ROM drive that was in SATA4 and everything is working great now. Thanks a lot crackity jones..

fb1

[chris8628]

Hi All,
this is my first post so please bear with me.
I am running Vista Home Basic and have recently installed a second Harddrive. I formatted it and gave it a drive letter and all appeared ok.
After a day or two I noticed the drive had dissappeared. Sometimes a reboot will make it reappear. It also dissapears from a successful boot up. It also dissapears from the BIOS.
I have read the thread but unfortunately I only have Two SATA ports to play with.

Any other ideas please?

[Starnamer]

I'm getting a similar problem on an Acer 8920G. It originally had a Western Digital 320Gb SATA disk (WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0). I added a 2nd Fujitsu 320Gb disk (Fujitsu MJA2320BH G2). Initially everything was fine, but now it seems tht everytime I reboot, the second drive (Fujitsu) disappears.

Both disks are seen in the BIOS, but the 2nd drive doesn't appear in either safe mode or normal windows. I'm running Vista Home Premium with SP2.

The only way I've found to get it back is power down, remove the Fujitsu drive, power up and start windows, shutdown, reinstall drive and start up again.

The only time it has recently rebooted and kept the drive was when I scheduled a disk check. Perhaps I should try that again.

Any recommendations anyone?

[Starnamer]

Further investigation showed that the 2nd disk was 'hidden'. It was in the BIOS, and the Intel Mtrix Storage Console (it's on an Intel Controller) showed it as online and OK, but Device Manager (and Disk Management) wouldn't show it.

In Device Manager there's an option [View]->[Show Hidden Devices]. Using this brought it up with an alert triangle. The properties showed it had been 'stopped' due to reporting an error (code 43). No indication what the error was!

Simply disabling and enabling the drive brought it back online.

I also ran the manufacturer's (Fujitsu) diagnostics for over 2 hours and that indicated there was no problem with the drive so I suspect this is a Microsoft bug since the disk is using standard Microsoft drivers.

[broothal]

I'm having the exact same problem on Windows 7. I am not going to dismantle the PC and switch cables, as I don't know my way around hardware. Any software solutions?

[Hiltonturner]

i'm using vista rc1 x64. i initially installed this os onto my 200gb sata drive, but keopt having booting problems, namely, the missing BOOTMGR error. this was usually solved by turning the computer off and then on again (not just a restart). at worst, i would run the boot repair app on the vista disc. i also have a 80gb pata drive connected. i started to receive errors while attempting to transfer files from one disc to the other, pointing towards the fact that the sata drive did not exist (although this seems really weird now, given that the os was running from that drive) and iirc, on checking 'computer', the disk drive had disappeared. one time the problem got so bad that i decided to reinstall vista (the good thing is that i knew it would keep all my old files in 'windows.old'). while doing this, i realised that my pata drive was recognised as hd0 (or the equivalent) and i decided to just install vista onto that to get rid of the problems. so now im running vista off the pata and have never had a BOOTMGR missing error with this config. i can access files and run progs. from the sata and it appears in 'computer' and all is well, until i want to transfer files from the pata to the sata. the transfer gets interrupted and then when i look in 'computer', the sata drive is missing. while writing this, i realised that i don't think that i have checked the jumpers on the pata drive - the whole master/slave thing - (which i will do, next chance i get) however, maybe this is not relevant to this problem, and especially given that i only have these two drives attached, obviously with their own individual cables. i usually google my problems and find them, however, this one is a bit more of a pain. i have an asus p5w dh motherboard (975x) with latest bios etc. is this problem more closely related to the newness of the motherboard, the fact that i am using vista RC1 or somthing to do with the jumpers (or other). anyone else had similar problems or heard of this one? thanks in anticipation.

Just fixed same problem on a acer computer by downloading OpticalDrive PM driver for windows 7 from acer web site.This is a power managment driver.Of all things was a power problem.Lokk on you Computer website and look for driver.

[knightdulac]

Moving the SATA Cable to 4 sure looks like it worked for me .. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you :-)

[ErikJon]

Dear Friends,

I also have spent hours trying to find the solution to this problem of the disappearing external HDD, that appears in the Disk Manager but not in "My Computer", for example, or that appears in "My Computer" but later disappears. This is the ONLY forum where I believe we have finally found the answer. I congratulate you greatly.

It seems to me that the solution that works most often is described by Crackity on first page of this same thread. He said, "After digging deep into windows disk manager, BIOS, etc., I decided to open up my PC and switch the connections of the disks on the MOBO to see if that would help. Then when I looked into the manual of the MOBO I noticed a remark that the System disk MUST be on SATA 1 or 2 and the Data disk MUST be on SATA 3 or 4. I followed this instruction and everything works just fine again."

My only issue is that I am not a programmer nor an I.T. man; I work with graphic design and music editing, among other things. Consequently I need the help of you technical experts regarding only how to IMPLEMENT the solution given above, on my own Vista laptop. Please kindly help an ignorant guy with a simple step-by-step explanation of how to switch the connections on the MOBO (whatever that is), so that I can assign my two external Seagate HDDs to SATA 3 and 4.

I am guessing that this will involve re-booting the computer somehow in DOS, and making the adjustments there, but I do not know how to do that.

And if you will excuse my additional ignorance, I must say that I do not know whether these drives are SATA or IDE. They are 500 GB Seagate GoFlex Free Agent drives.

(Interestingly, I had bought one in 2010, and returned one year later, to buy two more, and yet the first one has NEVER presented a problem on any of my computers, but the later two have. The latter two were otherwise COMPLETELY IDENTICAL to the first, except for an "updated" software and drivers on the drives when I went to install them: this is where the problem began to occur. In fact I have even tried reformatting the two new ones, and copying over the drivers from the older one, including all "hidden files," but to no avail. Maybe I did something wrong there also.

At any rate, please show me, step by step, how to re-assign these latter two drives to SATA 3 or 4, and I will be grateful.

[fwip]

ErikJon - SATA and IDE refer to the type of connection that is used to connect the hard drive to the motherboard (Mobo for short). I am not familiar with the wiring of laptops, but it looks like the hard drives you are using are external drives, and probably connect over a USB cable. If that's the case, I don't think that your problem is caused by the same issue as the person's you quoted.

[Kakanashev]

I had the same problem MY disk Dissapear ..What i did was
-Right Click on My COmputer
-then (Управление) i think in english its MAnage ?
-Then you should find Disc Manager
-Click on the Disk Without Symbol like C/D that you allready have and Add symbol Life B/F what ever and it will show up :) Good luck