Hard Drive randomly disconnecting

[Guenther Basart]

When I'm browsing the web, gaming or doing anything at all really, file explorer will randomly open itself on drive  D:\

If I play a game or use an application which is installed on drive  D:\  and the file explorer decides to randomly open up my  D:\  drive,

those games/apps will have a chance to crash or throw a critical error, forcing me to restart my PC.

Checking the event viewer after file explorer opened itself

revealed a warning which stated "Disk 2 has been surprise removed" Disk 2 being the  D:\  drive.

 

 

All of this started happening a while ago after I was messing with an external USB SSD.

I plugged that SSD into my PC to transfer some files, when all processes were done, I tried to eject the SSD via windows.

Which didn't work because it said that it was in active use, even though it wasn't. Nothing was being written to it or anything of that sort, so I just unplugged it from the PC.

When I plugged the SSD back in however, it wasn't being shown in the file explorer because its drive letter unassigned itself.

Then my main issues with drive  D:\  started to slowly appear.

I'm thinking that maybe Windows is mixing up my external SSD with my internal drive, treating it like an external one?

 

I ran a CHKDSK prompt on both the SSD and my internal drive.

Both drives had a little corruption.

 

 

Hopefully my explanation is somewhat comprehensible.

I'm open to any questions or suggestions regarding my issue!

[Sawa Takahashi]

1 hour ago, Guenther Basart said:

Hopefully my explanation is somewhat comprehensible.

Yes, this is nicely explained.

Your issue may be that your hard drive is really defective and unplugging and replugging every now and then.

But it can also be Windows that borked it's registry somehow and now tries to reconnect the missing drive instead, overwriting the disk allocation table or something similar.

The true fix is probably to backup all your data and reinstall Windows from scratch. But you can try a few things before that.

First, you should make sure you have a backup of your important data. 

Check in Bios if the drives are correctly detected. If not, try disabling and enabling the port/slot of the problematic drive.

In Windows Disk Management, try unmounting and re-mouting the drive to see if it fixes the issue.

Try booting from a linux Live USB and see if the issue occurs in linux too. If yes, this is a BIOS or hardware problem. If no, then it is a Windows problem.

Hope this helps and Good luck !

[Guenther Basart]

1 hour ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

Yes, this is nicely explained.

Your issue may be that your hard drive is really defective and unplugging and replugging every now and then.

But it can also be Windows that borked it's registry somehow and now tries to reconnect the missing drive instead, overwriting the disk allocation table or something similar.

The true fix is probably to backup all your data and reinstall Windows from scratch. But you can try a few things before that.

First, you should make sure you have a backup of your important data. 

Check in Bios if the drives are correctly detected. If not, try disabling and enabling the port/slot of the problematic drive.

In Windows Disk Management, try unmounting and re-mouting the drive to see if it fixes the issue.

Try booting from a linux Live USB and see if the issue occurs in linux too. If yes, this is a BIOS or hardware problem. If no, then it is a Windows problem.

Hope this helps and Good luck !

Thanks a lot for your suggestions!

Definitely will be trying these tomorrow.

I'll keep you updated should anything interesting happen.

[Kilrah]

Try to reseat/replace the SATA / power cables.

[Guenther Basart]

Took a gander at my BIOS today, saw all four of my drives in there without any errors or alike.

 

I then proceeded to dismount and remount my  D:\  drive in disk management, doing so made the issue go away.

Wouldn't call this a definite fix just yet, I had moments where the drive will work fine for a day or so and then come back with the same problem.

 

I'll keep y'all updated if the issue is gone for good.

[Guenther Basart]

Aaaand just as I expected, an hour after my reply, the drive started to show the same issues as before.

 

Next thing I did was grab my  D:\  drive out of my main PC and shove it inside another one.

Having the drive connected in the other PC resulted in no issues at all.

I was able to install and play games just fine.

Performing a CHKDSK for drive  D:\  in the other system didn't return any errors or corruption either.

 

So I guess it's safe to say that my hard drive itself is perfectly healthy.

Windows on the other hand seems to be screwing something up...

 

If anyone has any more ideas, I'm full ears.

[Sawa Takahashi]

On 3/15/2026 at 4:18 PM, Guenther Basart said:

If anyone has any more ideas, I'm full ears.

Since you know the drive is good, the fault may be Windows or the cables or the SATA ports on the motherboard. You can try using the cables which were doing fine in the other computer and plug the drive in another SATA port on your computer. Maybe this will help. But if Windows is the problem, I fear a full reinstall is the true fix that will rule them all.

[Guenther Basart]

Alright something odd has happened.

 

My issues with the drive have not come back after installing it back into my main PC.

 

When I was putting the drive back into my main system, I traded cables with a different drive inside the same PC.

Doing so might have made the issue go away it seems.

Or maybe the drive fixed itself just by being in another system?

 

Either way, the drive has been running completely fine without any issues for a couple days now.

I'd go so far as to call this problem fixed.

 

Really hope I didn't just jinx myself there.

Thank you guys for offering me your help.

 

Wishing y'all a great day!

[Sawa Takahashi]

On 3/18/2026 at 10:31 AM, Guenther Basart said:

When I was putting the drive back into my main system, I traded cables with a different drive inside the same PC.

My guess is that the cable was defective (or the connector) and using another cable fixed the issue.

Good luck !