All SATA Drives Suddenly "Not Initialized"

[Quixotic]

Hey LTT Forum, I have an issue I've been spending the last few days on with no progress. Here's my current specs:

 

CPU: Ryzen 9 3900X

Mobo: ASUS Prime X570

GPU: Gigabyte 2070 Super

RAM: 64GB 3200MHz G.Skill Trident Z

PSU: Corsair CX550M

OS: Windows 10 64-Bit, fully updated

 

The system has been running fine since I built it in mid-2020. However, a couple days ago I woke up and found that all of my SATA drives were missing. They still showed up in the BIOS, and I checked Disk Management and saw that all of the drives were there, but come up as "Not Initialized" and Unallocated. My two M.2 drives are working fine.

 

I thought it was highly unlikely that four SATA drives all conveniently died in the same 8 hour window, so I checked CrystalDiskInfo and all but one of them show "Good" health. I also thought the SATA controller on the motherboard may have died, so I installed a brand new PCI SATA adapter and plugged them all in, but the same thing happens: Not Initialized. I have no idea what could have happened, as all the drives were working fine just days ago, and now none of them are accessible. I did notice a restore point had been created while I was sleeping, but restoring to that point didn't change anything, and I have no idea what program would have initiated it.

 

I really don't want to initialize and wipe the data from them, as these are my storage drives that have years of files on them.

 

Any ideas?

 

[WintorialsLift]

6 hours ago, Quixotic said:

Hey LTT Forum, I have an issue I've been spending the last few days on with no progress. Here's my current specs:

 

CPU: Ryzen 9 3900X

Mobo: ASUS Prime X570

GPU: Gigabyte 2070 Super

RAM: 64GB 3200MHz G.Skill Trident Z

PSU: Corsair CX550M

OS: Windows 10 64-Bit, fully updated

 

The system has been running fine since I built it in mid-2020. However, a couple days ago I woke up and found that all of my SATA drives were missing. They still showed up in the BIOS, and I checked Disk Management and saw that all of the drives were there, but come up as "Not Initialized" and Unallocated. My two M.2 drives are working fine.

 

I thought it was highly unlikely that four SATA drives all conveniently died in the same 8 hour window, so I checked CrystalDiskInfo and all but one of them show "Good" health. I also thought the SATA controller on the motherboard may have died, so I installed a brand new PCI SATA adapter and plugged them all in, but the same thing happens: Not Initialized. I have no idea what could have happened, as all the drives were working fine just days ago, and now none of them are accessible. I did notice a restore point had been created while I was sleeping, but restoring to that point didn't change anything, and I have no idea what program would have initiated it.

 

I really don't want to initialize and wipe the data from them, as these are my storage drives that have years of files on them.

 

Any ideas?

 

Have you tried to plug each of them one by one (i.e. other 3 unplugged, just plug one at a time and on a different SATA port than what it was previously on)?

Do you happen to have a SATA enclosure? Try that if you do.

Not sure what could cause such a thing though

[Quixotic]

1 hour ago, WintorialsLift said:

Have you tried to plug each of them one by one (i.e. other 3 unplugged, just plug one at a time and on a different SATA port than what it was previously on)?

Do you happen to have a SATA enclosure? Try that if you do.

Not sure what could cause such a thing though

Thanks for the suggestion! Foolishly I didn't try that, but it seems like I didn't have to.

 

I ran TestDisk and followed some instructions. It found the partitions, and after a restart all I had to do was assign a Drive Letter in Disk Management and the drives returned! I still have no idea what caused the issue, but I suppose if it happens again I have an idea on how to repair it.