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HDD disconnects like mad in Windows 10

Alir
By Alir
in Troubleshooting
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So this PC has components that are around 3-4 years old. The motherboard is newer.

 

Windows 10 is running off of an SSD. I have a HDD for games and stuff and the like.

 

For a long time I have had a problem where my HDD disconnects after a while of me booting the PC. I recall it happening around last year but it stopped eventually. Recently it started happening again. I get an error notification from IAStorUI (Intel Rapid Storage Technology software) that my drive has been disconnected and a warning telling me to safely dismount the volume before removing the drive (the drive is encrypted and I manually decrypt the partition after boot). I'm certain the encryption isn't causing this. It still crashes even when it doesn't get decrypted. 

 

It recently started happening again and it drives me insane. The time of how long it takes after boot to happen has decreased to around 1-2 minutes. Though I did do a copy paste operation of 60BGs from my SSD to my HDD and it lasted around 30 minutes I think until the error popped up and the drive disconnected. That was mid copy.

 

I did boot Ubuntu on a live CD to do SMART tests and to see if the problem would persist under Linux. I made complete drive backups of both the SSD and HDD. No problems whatsoever in Linux after a day of it being left on. And the extended SMART test passed. Worth noting maybe, my PC froze and I had to restart it with the reset button. I have strong reason to believe that was because of a lack of RAM space for the Live CD since I was doing so many things and downloaded a large .iso file which was saved in the RAM. Restarting both drives whilst mounted did not cause any "bad blocks" (I checked via chkdsk).

 

But, the error in pic.jpg showed up in my first Windows boot after the freeze in Linux. This wasn't there before. When this shows up, the software asks me to "suppress the SMART event" which I do. The error then stops showing up and the status of the drive changes to "normal" which theoretically should mean that my drive should show up. Nope. It doesn't show up at all in "Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management".

 

I changed the SATA port to being hot swappable. I powered on the drive after boot (with a HDD switch) and the drive doesn't disconnect or show errors (yet). I disabled hot swappable, rebooted and it disconnects again.

 

The error implies that a SMART variable has failed. I booted up "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows" - a Western Digital (HDD manufacturer) software which completes SMART tests under Windows the WD way. No errors in an extended test. This corroborates the SMART test results in Linux.

 

What's the deal? I have tried changing SATA cable. I even changed it with the SSD cable. I have tried changing the power cable for the drive. I have tried changing the port it connects to on the motherboard. I have tried updating motherboard drivers. Nuffin works

 

 

pic.jpg

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Have you attempted using an older version of the Intel software by chance or disabling it completely?  My line of thinking is that the software maybe reading a variable from the drive that it just isn't programmed to read correctly? 

 

Also it sounds like you already covered the hardware part of the diagnostics

 

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Oh I also booted safe mode for many many hours. The drive didn't disconnect

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Just now, kolliochio said:

Have you attempted using an older version of the Intel software by chance or disabling it completely?  My line of thinking is that the software maybe reading a variable from the drive that it just isn't programmed to read correctly? 

 

Also it sounds like you already covered the hardware part of the diagnostics

 

Well theoretically, there still could be something wrong with the hardware. But it would be weird for software to pick it up whilst the actual WD SMART checking software not picking it up

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Just now, kolliochio said:

Have you attempted using an older version of the Intel software by chance or disabling it completely?  My line of thinking is that the software maybe reading a variable from the drive that it just isn't programmed to read correctly? 

 

Also it sounds like you already covered the hardware part of the diagnostics

 

 

Well the Intel software is/comes with the driver. So I don't think using an old driver would be beneficial?

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Just now, kolliochio said:

May also be worth checking Crystal Disk to see if it picks anything up

 

 

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

 

Is there any type of scan I need to do? The drive shows up as "Good" with a nice healthy green background. I think my HDD is vegan. Edit: Sorry my bad. It's blue. It's a fish

Edited by Alir
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No scan needed.  Crystal disk reads directly off the Smart Chip on the drive.

 

I would say its a software issue from intel at this point.  Try finding either an older version of the IAStor software or disabling it all together.  The reason it disconnects the drive is safety precaution when the system is getting an error.

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If it was working for a few years and just started having the issue then it could be a problem with the newer software.  Whats the model number and brand of the drive?

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Just now, kolliochio said:

If it was working for a few years and just started having the issue then it could be a problem with the newer software.  Whats the model number and brand of the drive?

Western Digital drive.

WD1003FZEX-00MK2A0 (ATA)

 

I don't think the software was updated. The website says the last update was in 2016

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Hmm. In the past I found a bug in the MSI killer network driver that caused RAM usage to constantly increase until the PC became unresponsive (serious memory leakage). I contacting Killer Networking and they said they suggested to install the driver from their website. Which I did. It solved the issue.

 

Hence I'll try installing https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27984/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-User-Interface-and-Driver?product=55005

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Check advanced options in your Power plan and see if disks are set to sleep and after which time. I set mine to None.

 

I found that on tomshardware.  Guy was having the same problem and that fixed it for them.  I'll do some digging though in the mean time and see what I can find.

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Ok.  I haven't really kept up with the Intel software sadly ( I try to keep things running in the background to a minimum lol )

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Just now, kolliochio said:

Check advanced options in your Power plan and see if disks are set to sleep and after which time. I set mine to None.

 

I found that on tomshardware.  Guy was having the same problem and that fixed it for them.  I'll do some digging though in the mean time and see what I can find.

After installing Windows 10, I always set the power options to High to avoid these kinds of problems. 

 

But yeah, the hard disk is set to turn off after 0 minutes. I think that means never. I'll increase it to 999999999999

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Just now, kolliochio said:

Ok.  I haven't really kept up with the Intel software sadly ( I try to keep things running in the background to a minimum lol )

The Intel software says "platform is not supported" lel

Edited by Alir
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Does it do this when the drive is under load \ not in use or just randomly at any time?

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I would say that would be the culprit then.  You should be able to disable it with out any ill effects to the system.  May run a little faster even. Speaking from experience.

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Just now, kolliochio said:

Does it do this when the drive is under load \ not in use or just randomly at any time?

Random apparently.

 

I mean I can keep the drive doing nothing and not interact with my PC and it would take a long time to finally disconnect. On the other hand, it might do it very quickly after boot despite me doing nothing.

 

But as I described in my first post, I copied a 60 GBs of data off the HDD in Windows and it disconnected after like 30 minutes, when most of the data was copied. 

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Just now, kolliochio said:

I would say that would be the culprit then.  You should be able to disable it with out any ill effects to the system.  May run a little faster even. Speaking from experience.

Wait. How is the Intel software the culprit?

 

I meant the specific Intel driver .exe I downloaded from Intel's website said that after I executed it. The Intel driver from MSI installs properly

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1 minute ago, Alir said:

Random apparently.

 

I mean I can keep the drive doing nothing and not interact with my PC and it would take a long time to finally disconnect. On the other hand, it might do it very quickly after boot despite me doing nothing.

 

But as I described in my first post, I copied a 60 GBs of data off the HDD in Windows and it disconnected after like 30 minutes, when most of the data was copied. 

Just wanted to see if it was a 1 off.  You mentioned that in Linux it had no issues at all as well.  I'm really leaning heavily that its gotta be that Iastor software.

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It can also disconnect whilst the partition is not mounted in the encryption software. So it crashes basically when no data is visible to the OS. 

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1 minute ago, Alir said:

Wait. How is the Intel software the culprit?

 

I meant the specific Intel driver .exe I downloaded from Intel's website said that after I executed it. The Intel driver from MSI installs properly

Oo I apologize I misunderstood

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