disappearing hard drive

Discussion in 'Storage Devices' started by rcopley, Sep 25, 2008.

  1. rcopley

    rcopley Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Recently one of my hard drives has started to not show up. It's not all the time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the bios recognizes the hard drive and then sometimes it doesn't. Even when bios recognizes the hard drive windows won't always recognize it. This has never been a problem until recently. I'm trying to diagnose the problem but to no avail. I'm wondering if anyone else had a similar problem and if the problem is the power supply or if it's hard drive itself. Please help.
     
  2. Fred

    Fred Moderator

    Likes Received:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    18
    I'm a little unclear as to whether you have one hdd or two and if one or both hdds are not showing up. Please clear this up for me. There are a few different possibilities for why your hdd is not showing up; Some more likely than others. Here's what I would try:
    • Download a hdd test such as DFT or Seatools (You can google these programs for a free download), burn it to a cd and boot from it. These will test your hdds for defects.
    • Is your hdd IDE or SATA? If you switch out the data cable, you can see if this is the problem. The problem with this is you may not have an extra cable lying around.
    • Lastly, it is unlikely to be your PSU, but still possible. Who is the maker of your power supply and what model?
     
  3. rcopley

    rcopley Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I have two hard drives, One of them is always working and is the master and the one that keeps disappearing is the slave.

    I already dled a diagnostic test for my hard drive and everything passed, so I guess that would mean the hard drive is fine.

    I believe my hard drive is SATA. It runs on the IDE ribbon.

    The maker of my Power supply is MSI. It came with my motherboard/
     
  4. Fred

    Fred Moderator

    Likes Received:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Do you know any other details of the PSU? Like maybe the model number? Or a even a link to where you got the mobo so we can see the power supply.

    You gave conflicting descriptions of your hdd. You said its SATA, but it runs on an IDE cable.

    SATA
    IDE
     
  5. siva

    siva Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I have two hard drive.One of them is working as a master and another is working as a slave.This problem is common for a new PC.Sometimes it's appear and sometimes it doesn't.This problem will be solved by restarting your system.
    --------------
    Siva

    sreevyshcorp
     

Share This Page