Vanishing SSD.

[Distinctly Average]

For the last few months, the second M.2 SSD on my photo editing setup keeps vanishing. It still appears in the BIOS but windows looses. it. So I thought, either a faulty SSD or a windows 11 issue. I grabbed another SSD from Crucial and put it in hoping that would be the end of my problems. But no, I still occasionally have to reboot eh PC or sometimes even pull the power. So not sure what to try next. I suppose it could be a motherboard or CPU issue, but odd it does still show in the BIOS. I have updated all the chipset drivers and the bios to the latest release and still the problem persists. So just need thoughts on what to do next. This is an older PC that I only use for photo editing. I has 4*6tb spinning rust in it housing the metric butt ton of photos I take as well as the boot M.2 SSD and a second m.2 SSD that is home to my Lightroom library files. But it is a relatively low spec by modern standards machine otherwise. A gigabyte Aorus x470 with a Ryzen 2700x, 64gb ram and an RTX2600.

[191x7]

Check the CMOS battery voltage. Dead batteries can cause that on AM4 motherboards.

If you can't check (don't have a multimeter), just outright replace the battery.

[Distinctly Average]

59 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Check the CMOS battery voltage. Dead batteries can cause that on AM4 motherboards.

If you can't check (don't have a multimeter), just outright replace the battery.

Thanks, something I never thought of as it has not been loosing settings etc. Given the age of this system it is probably a good call. And yes, I do have many multimeters, scopes etc. I work as an IT specialist but in the mainframe and enterprise storage arenas so desktops I barely touch. Information like AM4 issues I just don't have experience of.

[191x7]

2 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

Thanks, something I never thought of as it has not been loosing settings etc. Given the age of this system it is probably a good call. And yes, I do have many multimeters, scopes etc. I work as an IT specialist but in the mainframe and enterprise storage arenas so desktops I barely touch. Information like AM4 issues I just don't have experience of.

All the issues of disappearing second slot m.2 drives I've experienced were Asus AM4 boards (mine was the first, I even got an SSD RMA-d and it might not have been faulty), but that doesn't mean other manufacturers are exempt. My battery measured 2.3V and the issues stopped the moment I replaced it. There were no setting losses or time resets.

 

Edit: I'm also an IT Specialist, I work in a hospital.

[Distinctly Average]

17 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

All the issues of disappearing second slot m.2 drives I've experienced were Asus AM4 boards (mine was the first, I even got an SSD RMA-d and it might not have been faulty), but that doesn't mean other manufacturers are exempt. My battery measured 2.3V and the issues stopped the moment I replaced it. There were no setting losses or time resets.

 

Edit: I'm also an IT Specialist, I work in a hospital.

Bahh, seems that is not my issue. I have replaced it anyway but it is still at 3.24v. 

[191x7]

1 hour ago, Distinctly Average said:

Bahh, seems that is not my issue. I have replaced it anyway but it is still at 3.24v. 

What does Hard Disk Sentinel say?

[Distinctly Average]

54 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

What does Hard Disk Sentinel say?

Nothing out of the ordinary. At the moment all drives are good an all working 100% health except the boot SSD which is at 98% health. Temps are good at 32C, about a degree above the current room temp I am suffering at the moment. The problem is intermittent so really frustrating to diagnose. I don't want to fire the parts cannon at it although I was planning to upgrade later this year to a new Ryzen when they drop in price a bit from launch. 

[191x7]

52 minutes ago, Distinctly Average said:

Nothing out of the ordinary. At the moment all drives are good an all working 100% health except the boot SSD which is at 98% health. Temps are good at 32C, about a degree above the current room temp I am suffering at the moment. The problem is intermittent so really frustrating to diagnose. I don't want to fire the parts cannon at it although I was planning to upgrade later this year to a new Ryzen when they drop in price a bit from launch. 

Do your drives have the latest firmware(s)?

 

Checked the motherboard for visible damage?

 

Did an SFC /scannow check?

[Distinctly Average]

On 8/1/2024 at 9:22 PM, 191x7 said:

Do your drives have the latest firmware(s)?

 

Checked the motherboard for visible damage?

 

Did an SFC /scannow check?

After a lot of debugging including SFC /scannow I didn't get anywhere. So my next thought was the CPU. First I tried reseating it. The CPU I had was a 2700x which was a replacement sent to me from AMD under warranty as the 2600 that was in this system lost its TPM ability. AMD agreed it was faulty and sent me this 2700x. That was just over a year ago. I had some initial issues with this CPU not wanting to work with the memory profile until I swapped both the sticks to the other two slots, the wrong ones according to the MB manual and the slots that worked OK with the 2600. So in the back of my mind there was a niggle about this CPU. So still frustrated I managed to nab out of another PC a 5800x and since installing that I have not lost my second M.2 SSD. So I assume there was something amiss with that 2700x. A nice little upgrade to this box that cost me nothing but time. I have kept the 2700x just in case but I am sure it will gather dust until the AI apocalypse arrives and the terminators take over the planet.