DigitalGoat

Safe? Possibly. I would check those inner sheaths for damage, at least wrap the gap in plenty of electrical tape and eliminate as much cable stress as possible. Ideal thing to do is buy a new cable.

Use something like Sysinternals Autoruns (free app suite from Microsoft with some very useful utilities) and use it to check for all the related files and their paths. You can customise Taskmanager to also show the paths of apps and services but Autoruns allows you to disable them for the next startup to prevent "this file is in use" errors, you can then maunually delete the files/ folders/ registry entries and tasks associated with the problem app. Also check that the install is not coming from a browser extension, addon toolbar etc. Something like ADWcleaner from Malwarebytes might provide a solution there.

First thing I would do is to NOT make any changes to the drive, so no writing or running tools on it. Next use a program that can make a "forensic" copy of the drive, a bit by bit copy and save that somewhere safe, that is your backup of the information still retained on the drive in case attempts to restore data screw it up permanently. Once you have a safe copy of the drive you can attempt to recover it. There are several paid for and free programs to make bit by bit images of drives, Macrium, Aoemi & Acronis come to mind, you will need to wait for people to recommend some or do some research for yourself based on your experiance and budget, and look at the process of recovery. Sites like tenforums and elevenforums have some good tutorials and guides to file and drive recovery.

This could also be a case of the BIOS update changing the disk access method from AHCI to RAID or other type that is the default setting, changing it to what it was when you installed Windows should be enough to allow Windows to start.

First thing to try is a repair/ upgrade install, make a Windows setup USB or ISO depending on your preference then run setup while in Windows (ISO will need mounting as a virtual disc or burning to DVD). You should be presented with the option to reinstall Windows while keeping your files and programs. Be aware that sometimes the repair/ upgrade install may fail if you have drivers or programs that Windows detects will cause issues. I suggest using an app like Macrium to create a system image first to allow you to go back if things get screwed.

Wet wipes, mf cloth, air duster and stiff bristled paint brush for those crooks & nannies that hold hair, crumbs and other nasties the first three cannot shift/ reach.

Most of the shader packs for Minecraft Java rely on something like Optifine to run properly & need the correct version of both that and the shader pack for the version of Minecraft. Some shader packs need certain settings chosen in the shader menus in order to work as well. Resource packs may also work better with a particular shader pack and settings. I do not use Minecraft Bedrock but assume there are similar choices to make, although that version does support RTX ray tracing. The difference between running recommended software setups and not can be night & day. Nearly all the resource and shader pack creators have detailed guides on thier websites for installing and running thier mods. If you still have issues after researching the above then you might need to adjust some other settings in the GPU drivers or the server settings to improve performance, there are guides out there but they tend to be specific to the mods used and not general 'how to' guides. I personally use BSL shaders with John Smith's Legacy resource pack under Optifine (all updated for MC 1.20) on an RTX 3080 with Freesync and have no issues with fps or frame pacing.

Another cause could be a memory leak from an app/ driver/ service, basically a routine that is repeatedly called at a set period, so monitoring for inputs for example, but instead of clearing the memory used for the function when finished the routine just keeps adding more memory each time it is called. Over time this will use up all available memory. This is an overly simplified example. The only solutions to this issue would be an update for the 3rd party software, driver or to stop using the software as it is a programming error. You could track down the culprit by stopping all 3rd party software from starting with Windows, maybe disabling through the startup tab of Taskmanager or the Services tab, then re enable items one at a time for testing. Windows components have been know to have meory leaks at times, I believe the last one was Explorer in build 21h1, so making sure Windows is upto date could also help as could running SFC with the /scannow switch to check & fix Windows component errors if any exist.

You might want to keep an eye on your BIOS as well, some Asus BIOS have settings that auto download a couple of apps, Armoury Crate etc, when you install Windows, you can turn the settings off, but BIOS updates can reset them to on. I don't know if any Gigabyte BIOS do the same or if it might be a 'feature' they will introduce in newer updates.

It may well cause excessive wear on the head mechanism over a prolonged period depending on the quality of the components used. You can try to buff out the scratches if they are very minor, there are kits and solutions you can buy for this but research thoroughly, some buffing compounds cause the disc surface to become opaque causing read issues as problematic as the original scratches. Also some compounds if used to much can actually strip the disc surface layer away causing even more issues.

You could try Revo uninstaller, think the free version should work, install that then re install the Gigabyte app, after that use Revo to remove the app.

From the Nvidia forums, driver version 537.13 feedback, list of open issues: Small checkerboard like pattern may randomly appear in Chromium based applications [3992875]. I have an Asus RTX3080 and noticed this issue only after an Edge update this week but apparently the issue has been prevalent over several driver releases. Some people see it often in general browser use (especially when scrolling, videos viewed in the browser (random black squares) & occasionally in desktop use (Explorer windows etc, opening menus). Using DDU to revert to driver version 536.99 solved the issue for me but others have had to revert to even earlier versions to solve it. It depends on your setup and software version I suppose as to which driver causes the issues and it makes it very hard to distinguish between a driver issue and a hardware issue.

This could just be a failure to read the sensor data or a failing sensor, keep an eye on the temperature reported using more than one app (as you have done for the examples shown) especially when using the drive for extended periods/ heavy use. Another app you could add to the mix is HWInfo64 as that tends to be more reliable at getting sensor data, there is a free portable version (no install needed) that is feature rich. As to whether the drive is safe to continue using, I would say yes, until there is more consistent failed results accross a range of apps and data types, your current sector counts/ errors show no reason for concern, but maybe start backing up the files, just in case.

Use something like MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU clocks during gaming, note the rates at which a crash occurs, turn on debug mode and monitor the rates again, if the game doesn't crash in debug mode and the clocks are lower than without debug mode use Afterburner to set the clocks maximums to the values that work without a crash, effectively underclocking the GPU. In theory that should allow you to run without debug mode going forwards. It is a bit lacking of Nvidia to claim that the clock rate is the cause but not specify which clock rate, memory or core, so I think they are just "best guessing". The resolution would probably be a VBIOS update from the GPU manufacturer, maybe see if one is available. Techpowerup I beleive maintains a library of VBIOSs for most cards, or used to. There is no real issue with running in debug mode if the game works and you can probably set the driver to only use it for that one game in the profiles. Other than that use a combination of HWInfo64, MSI Afterburner and Unigene Superposition or 3DMark to monitor, log and check voltages, temps and core/ memory clocks for the system as a whole while running games and/ or benchmarking/ stressing the system to see how the components respond under different loads, you might be able to learn a lot about how your system works from such monitoring and make adjustments for best/ most stable performance. I'm sure others will have extra information for you if you check back here occasionally.

One thing that may help is to clear out the cache folders in the USER\Appdata\Local\Nvidia folder and the D3DSCache, these can cause issues with updated drivers and are not always removed using the clean install option or DDU.