SSD Data Drives Keep Disappearing!

W

Weeth

Gawd
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
662
Everything has been absolutely rock stable with my system (see sig) for almost a year since I built it. A couple of days ago all hell started breaking loose. Files would corrupt, wouldn't save, or wouldn't launch, shutdown would just go to the Shutting Down screen and stay there for hours until I had to unplug the rig, etc. etc. etc. So last night I reformatted the boot drive and reinstalled everything from scratch. Everything seems fine now except that the two drives I use for data are playing peekaboo. Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not, and I have to reboot several times to see them again. I've checked connections, I've run the Disk Manager, I've used Seatools, etc. but they're just not visible anywhere. Right now I've just rebooted three times in a row and I still can't see them anywhere. (Yes, they're IN the case... hahaha). An interesting note. This peekaboo seems to have started this morning after Win7 went through all of its updating, etc. and I might be suspecting that it's the latest Windows Update as it wasn't doing it through the hours while the system was going through the updates. Any clues? This is really frustrating, not to mention that it's really hard to get any work done when you have all your data on separate SSDs, and all you have on your PC is your C drive!
 
An update. I ran a System Restore to yesterday when it wasn't peekabooing and still nothing. However, I've noticed that the Asus splash screen at the beginning of the bootup sequence is staying on much longer than before. When everything was normal, the Asus screen was up for about 5 seconds, now it's over 30 seconds. I've gone into the EFI BIOS and the data SSDs aren't visible in there either. So I'm really stumped! FYI, I hadn't even opened the case for months prior to this problem starting so it wasn't because I changed hardware configurations or settings.
 
From what you describe, with multiple drive not even showing in the BIOS, it is either a power problem (are both drives plugged into the same power tree?) or a motherboard failure (both drives are plugged into the motherboard, and the controller(s) they are connected to are enable and active?)
 
Yeah, from a physical standpoint, everything is normal. Nothing has changed from before. Each SSD is connected to its own mobo plug. And even earlier this morning they were working fine. Then they just up and disappeared. It might be a mobo problem as it's unlikely that both data SSDs would start going sour at the same time and disappear and reappear synchronously. I really don't have any way of figuring it out.
 
I'm in Bizarro World and living out a Twilight Zone episode. I just rebooted three times. Twice by total shutdown and once by restart. When I restart I get no drives. When I shutdown I get all my drives visible. So it seems as if there is a problem in the restart. How the f does that happen?

Later update: I've got all my drives up and running and since it's after 8 am I can't afford to experiment further with restarts until the end of the business day as I have a lot of business work to do on this system today. So if anyone has any ideas, let me know and I'll play with it over the weekend.
 
Last edited:
my suggestion:
Check loose cables... and reattach them.
Check burn spots...(if there is, verify that it does nott cause malfunctions)
if Does not solve your problem:
* swap your PSU with a spare one ( I assume mostly people has a spare PSU for emergency situation)
if does not fix the problem again
* update your BIOS and configure your BIOS
if does not fix the problem once again:
* replace or RMA your motherboard
 
How are the SSDs connected?

Are they all on the Intel connectors?

Any errors in the event viewer?
 
What drives are these and what chipset? I have had similar issues with some SF-1200 series drives.
 
Due to the fact that I gotta keep working on this until 5 pm today I can't open the case and start messing around in there. However, the SSDs are connected each to its own SATA port on the mobo and they are on the same PSU power tree. Asus EFI BIOS is up to date. There are tons of errors in the event viewer in the last 24 hours and some in the last hour including some disk errors (is there any way of getting a log or copying the errors to post here). As my sig says: Asus P8Z68-V, 3 x Crucial M4 SSDs (128GB boot, 2 x 64GB data).
 
Did you say if you've updated the M4's to 000F firmware? You may be in the middle of the 5200 hour bug...
 
No firmware updates. The 2 x 64GB were bought in October and the 128GB a couple of months back. Nothing's been done to them.

Addition: Just did a quick calc and those two 64GBs which are the ones which are acting up would sure have very close to 5200 hours on them... Yikes!
 
Weeth said:
No firmware updates. The 2 x 64GB were bought in October and the 128GB a couple of months back. Nothing's been done to them.

Addition: Just did a quick calc and those two 64GBs which are the ones which are acting up would sure have very close to 5200 hours on them... Yikes!
Click to expand...

At least that's a 10 minute thing to update them and granted there is always the possibility of data loss and associated disclaimer, but I've done 50 of them and the firmware update has never wiped one yet.
 
Just did it and all three SSDs were eligible and all got the 000F. They're all running now so let's hope that was the problem. I likely was very very close if not right on to the 5200 hour mark with the 64GBs. I guess I have to blame myself for not keeping a closer eye on Crucial's firmware updates as this was the first I've heard of the 5200 bug. I'll let you guys know if the problem reappears... Thanks!
 
It's been almost a full day since the 000F update and everything is perfect! I thing that might have done the trick! That'll teach me to not keep up with firmware updates. Thanks guys and kudos to rsbennett00!
 
Weeth said:
It's been almost a full day since the 000F update and everything is perfect! I thing that might have done the trick! That'll teach me to not keep up with firmware updates. Thanks guys and kudos to rsbennett00!
Click to expand...

Good to hear!

And in your defense, before SSD's, updating firmware on platter drives was nearly unheard of.
 
Yeah, I'll definitely keep an eye on firmware upgrades from now on. And I'm a backup fiend. I had a one day old backup on an external 160GB HD and a one week old one on a 64GB flash drive in my safety deposit box at the bank! So if my house burns down my data is safe! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top