[Gooms9]

Hey, i've got an 80 gig IDE HDD which i use as my main windows drive and it works great. No problems with it. I've also got a 120 gig SATA drive which I use as a backup drive. The SATA drive shows up in the Safely Remove Hardware window which i've done a little research on and realised that that is perfectly normal.

The problem i'm having is that any random amount of time after i've restarted my computer, the SATA drive will just disappear and I get that little ding sound letting me know that something has been "safely removed" i guess. (That same sound you get when you unplug your ipod) It's doing this completely on it's own though and at completely random times. Sometimes it will be 5 minutes after I restart, sometimes it will be 2 days after I restart. I'm pretty sure it's not a cable problem because as soon as I restart my computer the drive shows up as normal again. Everything functions flawlessly until the hard drive "removes" itself.

I found a value I could add to my registry that would make my hard drive unremovable and it did remove the "safely remove hard drive" icon in my system tray but the hard drive still disappeared after a few hours of use. I've been unable to find any specific pattern when it removes itself. Any tips would be appreciated. I've got a sneaking suspicion that the drive may be starting to go. Any way I can check for sure? Thanks

[CrazeD]

Is this an internal or external drive?

Did you try replacing the cable?

[Gooms9]

internal, and yes, i have replaced the cable.

[tropicalfish]

Make sure that the power cable is firmly attached to the drive. Make sure that the data cable is not having "kinks" or sharp bends and make sure it is firmly attached to the drive and motherboard.

[bmxfreakrider]

also, are all of your motherboard drivers up to date? your storage drivers, be it from nvidia, ati, or via, get the most recent. that could solve the problem if the above steps dont.

[Gooms9]

Ok, i've updated all my drivers. I switched the cable again, made sure it was a straight as humanly possible, tried plugging it into a different SATA port in my motherboard, and it still happens. I can make it happen every time when I try to defragment the hard drive. Any other suggestions?

[CrazeD]

Have you tried formatting it?

[Gooms9]

i just formatted it a couple weeks ago because I couldn't even boot windows with it connected which makes me think that it's probably just something wrong with the hard drive itself. But i'll try again. I just tried defragging it in safe mode and it made it through the whole defrag, but then disconnected shortly after that.

[CrazeD]

Try hooking it to a friend's computer for a while and see if it does it. If it does, then the drive is at fault.

[bmxfreakrider]

jok...have you considered the the drive may be faulty, and needs to be replaced?