Turned PC off and when I've turned it back on my 2nd HDD has just vanished.

Any ideas?!

I have alot of stuff on it I don't want to lose. Any ways I can get it to show again?


Went into BIOS and it's not showing in there either.

 

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Not in BIOS / Device Manager or Disk Management.


I've tried replacing the SATA cable, even tried using another SATA socket on the board but I'm getting nothing.


Is it possible for the drive to vanish like this?! It's not even that old.

 

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I like times like these.


*what goes around comes around.

 

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Trolling like that on the tech board isn't going to go very far

 

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Shut down the computer.

Unplug it.

Press the power button.

Disconnect ALL other drives.

Plug it back in.

Post back into the BIOS.


IS it there this time?


If so, 2 things possible.


1) its or something else in the system is going down.

2) PSU is dieing.


If it did reappear, move it to another computer and Image the drive onto yet another drive that you know is good. Image it using something like Seatools drive copy in windows unless you think the PSU is going down, in which case, replace the PSU.

lol. the one answer that will work for any problem

seriously though, can you try the drive in another computer?

it's good that you tried a diff port and cable, but that doesn't rule those 2 things out. can only rule them out if you try the same port & cable with another hdd and it works.

 

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Make sure the HDD power is plugged in. Try a second SATA power connector if the first accomplishes nothing.

Can try resetting your CMOS to make sure it isn't a BIOS problem. Either yank your CMOS battery or use the CMOS reset switch on your motherboard if it has one.

If it isn't your BIOS, and it isn't user error, it is probably a roasted HDD. Not likely a motherboard problem. Definitely not a software based problem.

 

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I'm not sure if this would make a difference or if it can effect my pc but I'll mention it anyway incase...


I have my PC hooked up to my hi-fi, which is quite powerful.

When I got home as well as my HDD disappearing I had 2 lightbulbs in my room gone out and my clock had reset.

I'm of a slight feeling that he had blasted my stereo and caused the power to go out at some stage. (cause he also mentioned my amp displaying an error which meant he had to turn it off at the wall) This could only of happened imo if he's had it stupid loud.

Is it possible that if he's knocked the power out it could of effected the HDD itself? I wouldn't think so myself since my main HDD with the OS system on is fine and it's about 4 years older but thought I'd throw it out there incase...

 

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You could have had some strange power surge that blew something in the problematic HDD. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the problem. Usually when a HDD goes out, the computer still sees it in the BIOS. The fact that it isn't in the BIOS points reasonably squarely to the reality that it is either user-error or a problem with the circuitry of the HDD. Reverse the power plugs that go into each of your HDD to make certain that your power supply isn't at fault.

 

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Hi-Fi equipment would clip and auto shut off before it damaged itself or anything electronic really. Though the clipping could destroy your speakers. Again depends on how much more powerful the amp is vs what speakers can take. That depends on how old the amp/receiver is though.

More likely a surge unrelated and would of probably killed your MB/PSU before HDs.

I would test the HDD alone as described above and see if your PC maker has a util disc you can use to check it with. Or could also pop in a OS disc (do not install), but test if disc shows up then. It could just be disc went bad or there was a sector failure on the mapping in which case it would show up as an unformated new disc and one would need to do some type of recovery.

 

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