HDD LED on front of PC always on after 2nd drive disappears?

ProbleMatic · 16 Jun 2015

So, I'll be using my pc like normal, and randomly my 2nd HDD will just drop off, and I'm not sure why. When it does, my PC's HDD LED is always on... I don't get it. I don't think the hard drive is bad nor do I think the cables are bad, what should I do? Should I try a cable switch? Should I clean the connections? I'm lost. I ran a HDD diagnostic and the test passed recently. This is what the HDD activity light looks like:

HDD LED on front of PC always on after 2nd drive disappears?-yjftqns.jpg

It just stays always on like I said. If I reboot that solves the problem, but that's only a temporary fix.
The drive is Western Digital 1TB Caviar Green drive, and the model is wdc_wd10eads-00m2b0. I've had the drive for quite awhile, and it hasn't really given me any problems until recently.

Setting 'turn off the hard drives after' setting in power options to 'Never' doesn't solve the problem either.

Indianatone · 16 Jun 2015

Download Download Hard Disk Sentinel Post a screen shot of the findings. This can be the sata cables, the sata socket on the motherboard or even the hard drive.

ProbleMatic · 16 Jun 2015

Downloaded the trial version, will reboot and then scan, then will post an update with a screenshot.

ProbleMatic · 16 Jun 2015

Well.. it's displaying good hdd health, except for this:

HDD LED on front of PC always on after 2nd drive disappears?-problemshost.png

My main drive isn't displaying any sort of message like that.

Also I did some cable switching after shut down, and then booted back up once I switched.

ProbleMatic · 16 Jun 2015

Ran a random seek test, it appears that it's ok. Here's a snip of that:

HDD LED on front of PC always on after 2nd drive disappears?-seektest.png

ProbleMatic · 16 Jun 2015

The 2378 number has not gone up. Also it appears the total start/stop count on my main drive is less than the bigger one. The main drive only has a start/stop count of 192 while the problem drive had a 5,060 count. Does that mean anything?

Main drive:

HDD LED on front of PC always on after 2nd drive disappears?-main.png

Problem one:

HDD LED on front of PC always on after 2nd drive disappears?-other.png

Here's a screenshot of the S.M.A.R.T tab of the problem drive:

HDD LED on front of PC always on after 2nd drive disappears?-smart.png

AddRAM · 16 Jun 2015

Make sure you have hard drive set to never sleep in the power options, yes it matters.

I use HDS and I got that exact message on 1 of my 1 TB drives, guess what, that hard drive has been in a cardboard box for over a year, no longer used :)

Hard Disk Sentinal is a good program.

1 TB drives are cheap, just replace it.

ProbleMatic · 16 Jun 2015

It is set to never sleep in power options. Also AddRam, what 1TB drive would you recommend if I were to replace it? I mean I guess I could but I'd have to transfer the data over to the new drive if that's the case, and there's a lot of data to transfer over.

GokAy · 16 Jun 2015

For what purpose you want the new drive?
Backup - WD Green
Speed/Silence - WD Blue
Long Warranty/Speed - WD Black

SSD would be best but I guess you need the space for data?

AddRAM · 16 Jun 2015

Well, you don`t want to loose your data do you ?

I recommend a Seagate Barracuda or a Western Digital Blue for storage.