Strange HDD issue

[DeaconFrost]

In all my years of building and supporting PCs, I have never encountered this before. In the system listed in System Specs, I was trying to open some media files on my D drive, which is the WD 750 Caviar Black. A few of them hung up for a little while and then gave me a Windows Media Player error about server execution failing. After about the 5th one, my Explorer window closed, which was displaying the root of D. I noticed D was missing in Explorer completely, and also from Device Manager. Damn, I thought.

I rebooted, and my BIOS hung on the AHCI detection screen, and didn't find the drive. I powered off the system, checked the cables, and powered back up. The drive was detected, and was visible in Explorer as well. I downloaded and ran the WD Data Lifeguard tools, and my drive passed the quick and extended tests. I've rebooted several times, and the drive seems fine.

Has anyone ever encountered something like this?

 

[bassfisher6522]

I've herd tale of SATA cables working themselves loose and causing what you described exactly...the cause of this is from the electrical current itself. However minimal the current, the current vibrates and given certain circumstances and conditions this vibration has led to fires. Those conditions are all based on the product quality, installation of product and the type of area that the wires are being installed.

Mind you this is info for a house...which I've personally seen the result of and me and my crew got the job of renovating half of a house. This came right from the Fire Marshall and Fire investigator.

Now all that being said the electrical current can cause the SATA connection to vibrate just enough to partially disrupt the signal so it's not being recognized. As we all know, some of those SATA cable connectors are not that snug fitting.

 

[Britton30]

Yessir I have and but with an AMD Gigabyte board. I did the same as you did and then all was well, no errors in drive test, worked fine. It has happened twice and the same steps fixed it. Gigabyte was no help though. I suspect it is a buggy SATA chip or driver, but can't confirm.

If your board has two SATA controllers as mine does you could try using the other one.

 

[TVeblen]

No. That is strange.

One time does not make a pattern, but if it happens again.....

The only thing that comes to mind is a power supply issue or a motherboard fault (also power related). Maybe a connection was loose and you fixed it checking things.

My system was exhibiting some strange random blue screens related to my hard drives that happened when the system and W7 was new that have since disappeared. I never really figured out what that was all about or what I did to correct it, if anything. It has not reoccurred in quite a while. Sometimes I really think it is gremlins.

I know I do not need to tell you, but I would definitely make sure all my backups were up to date while waiting to see if it happens again.