Hard drives only detected after a reboot

[Nikuichi]

Hello all,

I’ve had a weird issue with my PC for the longest time, I’m finally resorting to asking for help.

I have 2 HDDs and a SSD with my OS on it. When I boot my computer from being turned off, only the SSD is detected.
I need to perform a first boot and then reboot the PC to have access to my HDDs.
Every time I turn my PC off, I have to go through this whole process again.

My drives were working fine before this issue appearing seemingly out of nowhere.
I’m not too computer-savvy but I’ve tried disabling/enabling a ‘Fast Boot’ option in my BIOS or check HDD wiring to no avail.
I’m running W10 and can of course provide any additionnal info you deem necessary.

Apologies if I created this thread in the wrong section, I wasn’t too sure.

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

Nick

[Bruce]

g’day Nick and welcome to the forum.

weird issue indeed.
I would suggest you try to isolate the drive causing the issue.
disconnect one of the HDD’s and shutdown and restart to see if the problem repeats.
then do the same with only the other HDD connected.

hopefully the issue is with one drive only.

[Nikuichi]

Hello Bruce and thank you for the response.

I am an idiot.
I’ve had this setup for so long I actually forgot. I don’t have 2 HDDs but 1 HDD with 2 partitions (plus the SSD).
So then of course, the test loses its purpose.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Bruce]

still a valid test.
disconnected the HDD and just boot with the SSD connected.
see if that changes things.

[Nikuichi]

Well I’m not sure what the test would show.
With the SSD connected, only the SSD shows in the file explorer.
With the HDD plugged in as well, I only see the SSD on first boot and both drives after a reboot.

[Bruce]

maybe the HDD is faulty and causing your issue.
maybe it’s your memory, or motherboard, or power supply.
from your description, I’m going for the lowest hanging fruit first?

unless something is changed, you’ll never pinpoint the cause.

entirely up to you.

[Bruce]

Well I’m not sure what the test would show.
With the SSD connected, only the SSD shows in the file explorer.
With the HDD plugged in as well, I only see the SSD on first boot and both drives after a reboot.

so you have already done the test?
with only the SSD connected, the PC boots normally, every time?

[Nikuichi]

Oh I see what you mean.
Well then yes, PC boots normally when only the SSD is plugged in.
But to be honest I’ve only tried a couple times.

[Bruce]

best to give it a few days to a week to make sure we are on the right track.
if booting goes as normal for that duration then yes, we can blame the HDD.

you could get an external enclosure to house it in for the time being if you want to get data off it, or use it purely externally.

[Nikuichi]

I might give this a try but I have no external enclosure just yet and I’m using data on my HDD all the time.
I’ll keep you updated.

[Bruce]

get back to us in a couple of days. (y)

[Bruce]

@Nikuichi - any news?

[Nikuichi]

Yes, time for the update.

So I have a SSD with my OS on it, I booted the computer with or without other drives, never had an issue with the SSD.

Then there’s HDD1. It’s the one which I was talking about in the first place.
HDD1 is not detected when I boot my computer but is when I reboot it.
I tried HDD1 in an external enclosure, no issues at all, booting or rebooting the computer with the HDD1 plugged it.

I also had HDD2. (A HDD that previously was in the enclosure I tested HDD1 with.)
Never had an issue with HDD2 in the external enclosure either.
I plugged HDD2 internally and it seems to be detected everytime BUT my computer insists on booting from HDD2 instead of the SSD no matter what I try and I have to force boot on the SSD to access my PC.

Make of that what you will.

[Nikuichi]

Okay new update.
I tried a couple things with what I’ve been able to gather online.

I updated my BIOS and tried to boot up with HDD Delay as well as Fast Boot off, no luck.
I used the Seagate diagnostic tool for HDD1, nothing suspicious found.
No new firmware to update to either.

As for HDD2, what I was getting was a SMART error, so I autoskipped it from the BIOS.

I might use both HDDs in an external enclosure and buy a fresh internal one at this point, unless you have other leads.

[Bruce]

in your BIOS, is there an option in the boot order to configure something along the lines - SSD first, HDD2 second, HDD1 third.
or even SSD first and only, don’t even have any other boot devices.

is the BIOS up to date?

also check the SSD is on SATA0, if it’s not a NVMe drive.