Storage Solutions hard disks disappear from windows

S

stackoverflow

Contributor
Hello,

I have 4 hard disks (640G, 500G, 160G 1TB)

They are shown correctly in bios and also when windows boots

After some time I notice that except the 160G disk and its two volumes nothing else is seen in disk manager and windows explorer and the HDD light on the case is continously red.

My smps is powersafe 500 W but it is now more than 5 years old. Any idea what could be the reason for this behavior.

Any idea since I have vital data on my disks
 
What windows are you using?

Also, you say that 'they are shown correctly in bios and when windows boots' What do you mean when windows boots...?? How do you know they are shown when windows boots?

And 'After some time' the drives disappear... Does this mean that you can see and access the drives for some time after Windows boots up but suddenly, they disappear...??

Sorry, but I am a bit confused here and cannot make out what the real issue is... :S
 
stackoverflow said:
My smps is powersafe 500 W but it is now more than 5 years old.
Click to expand...

I suggest you upgrade your PSU. It'll be better for your PC's health.

You have mentioned that 160GB HDD shows up in disk manager and windows explorer so I guess Windows is installed on this drive.

Disconnect each HDD (except the 160GB) one by one and restart PC each time. This way you'll find the faulty drive (if any). All your HDDs can't die at the same time so I think one of the drives is causing this.

Also, it looks like you are running all these SATA drives in IDE mode. Change the operation of all drives to AHCI mode. Note that you'll have to change a value in the registry (before enabling AHCI) else Windows will throw up a BSOD on next boot. Google for more info...
 
Hi all,

When i connect only two disks all disks could be detected correctly.

SO at present I have connected only 160GB HDD to my PC.

Is this the issue with SMPS?

I am not sure how could it be because my UPS power meter shows max power drawn to be not more than 90W.

I think the powersafe 500W should suffice even after 5 years?

ALso what are the advantages of AHCI over IDE?
 
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