Disk Keeps Disappearing

[JackNaylorPE]

Have a PC with:

Disk 0 - 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro
Disk 1 - 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro
Disk 2 - 2 TB Seagate SSHD
Disk 3 - 2 TB Seagate SSHD

Originally was set up with SSDs in RAID ) and SSHDs in RAID 1. But as I was getting no benefit from either, I broke the array, wiped everything and started anew. Of late, the system keeps losing Disk 2.

Disk 3 houses all my office files
Disk 2 serves as a network backup with a games partition and the rest as backup / media server for networked machines.

The problem occurs basically when my one of my sons is playing Far Cry 4 or Battlefield 4. E:\is just "gone".

I don't believe the problem is hardware related as a) I ran all the Seagate utilities and all is good with the world and b) I can immediately restore it via a reboot or, I have recently learned, telling Disk Manager to Rescan Disks. Otherwise, when the machine sits idle, with me using it from other networked machines or my lappie, or just using AutoCAD and other apps it seems just fine.

Whatz making the OS "lose" disk 2 ?

 

[jumanji]

Whatz making the OS "lose" disk 2 ?

May be a confused Windows.

Just try the following drive cleanup act and see whether it resolves the problem.

Download v 0.8.1 of the drivecleanup.zip from Drive Tools for Windows.( I hadn't tried v0.9.0 and so I shall stick with the known 0.8.1)

Unzip it to a folder, say drivecleanup.

You will have two folders Win32 and x64 each containing DriveCleanup.exe for 32 bit and 64 bit respectively.

Remove all USB storage devices from your system (except your Keyboard and mouse) and reboot.
In your case disconnect from your network too so that networked drives also do not come in.

Right click on the DriveCleanup.exe and run as administrator. (Use the DriveCleanup.exe file appropriate for your bit version of Windows.).

After the clean up act, reboot.

This removes all non-present drives, registry entries pertaining to these drives, drive letters associated with those and you will be starting with a clean slate. All external drives connected will be installed afresh and get their drive letters afresh.

I don't know much about networking and may be you have to reassign the drive letters afresh for the network drives. For all practical purposes it will be like you had installed Windows afresh and start connecting external drives including your network drives for the first time.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

That's a quite a lot of effort that will have to be recreated. I have 8 regular users mapped to this file server, automatic backups and such all of which will have to be redone. There are no normally connected external drives on any system. I do an offsite backup about every 2 weeks... that dive is never a problem. It's the 1st SSHD that keeps disappearing.

If you boot the machine, Windows sets up up perfectly .... if it was "confused", it shouldn't do this. It's only when playing demanding games that it loses track, and "rescanning" put everything back w/o rebooting.

I wouldn't mind doing this if it would work but I'm missing how the solution relates to the problem. If windows was confused, those registry entries whatever are there all the time, it should be confused all the time. It shouldn't "forget" and then remember a minute later.

 

[jumanji]

OK, check for any other resolutions and reserve this for the final go.

We encounter many problems that defy a resolution for we simply do not know what is causing it. And that finally leads to a repair install or even a reinstall.

In your case may be a networking expert may see the problem right and offer a resolution. You may repost this in the Network and Sharing Forum as well so that it catches their attention.

Keep us posted here.

 

[americancritic2]

Hi JackNaylorpe If your problem is a new one why not do a simple restore going back at least 4 or 5 days before your problem started.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

It's been happening for months.....wasn't happening to me, I only found out about it recently.