Second HDD rapidly reappearing/disappearing with autorun/format dialog

[Shadowex3]

OS: win7 professional 64bit

While reformatting due to bit rot I installed a second hdd. It worked fine for the last few months but just recently started behaving strangely. When browsing in explorer after not having been there for a bit it would take a while to load but then become responsive then behave normally, and shortly after that the drive started disappearing periodically even though it still showed in bios.

In the last day or so the disappearing became more problematic and it stopped reappearing after logging out. Finally just now it's started reappearing and disappearing rapidly with an Autorun popup and, on some boot cycles, a "you need to format this drive" dialog. For the few seconds it's visible everything is normal, but then it will disappear and the cycle repeats.

I've never gotten anything like this before, and every hdd I've ever lost gave the click of death before dying so if that's what's happening it's caught me by surprise.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Shadow mate I would try renewing the cables mate or at least reseating them and see if they are the problem.

Anyway I would be running these as well

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html
If this doesnt do much then run some drive tests SeaTools for Windows | Seagate

and Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition. > for a physical surface test

 

[Shadowex3]

Yep, seems like a dead drive then. I recognize the chkdisk screen from that guide, it's run that once at boot already once and basically gave an unending stream of "File record segment unreadable ######".

I can't run any of the utilities because the hdd doesn't even stay visible in windows long enough to click on. It completes a cycle of disappearing, reappearing, the autoplay dialog opening, and disappearing again within a few seconds at most.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Shadow if you need some data off that drive try this as I have used this on quite a few occasions to recover data I thought had gone forever on my own machines and hen on fixes I have done.

BOOTABLEUBUNTU

Make a bootable Ubuntu disk http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Set the BIOS to boot from theoptical when the machine boots it will show you a screen with TRY or INSTALL> select TRY

When it is finished - it takes verylittle time you will get a screen like in the pic .

Open the drive you want > Userand dig down until you get to the data / settings you may be able to copy /paste the material you want to an external source or other installed drive doingthis.

I am not sure if it will but I haverecovered tons of data etc using this method both on "dead" or justplain drives that you cannot get data from using Windows.

 

[Shadowex3]

Tried it, got an input/output error and then it disappeared like it does on windows.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Doesn't sound good mate I reckon the drive is cactus.

 

[Shadowex3]

Yeah I think it went schiavo silently. First time I've lost a drive without the click of death... I should have figured it out back when it started needing to "reload".

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yep mate thye can go even without a whimper let alone a click.