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Hard drives only detected after a reboot

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Nikuichi

PCHF Member
Jul 20, 2022
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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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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. :)
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
by SATA0, I mean what SATA port is the SSD cabled into?
for example, if your motherboard has four SATA ports, they'll be labelled SATA0, SATA1, SATA2, SATA3.
some BIOS are set to assume whatever is on SATA0 is the first boot device.
 
Summary

Operating System
Windows 10 Professionnel 64-bit

CPU

Intel Core i5 4590 @ 3.30GHz 57 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology

RAM

8,00 Go Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)

Motherboard

ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. H97M-E (SOCKET 1150) 109 °C

Graphics

VX248 (1920x1080@60Hz)
VX248 (1920x1080@60Hz)
VX248 (1920x1080@60Hz)
XenSource Citrix Indirect Display Adapter (Undefined)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (MSI) 49 °C
SLI Disabled

Storage

238GB Crucial_CT256MX100SSD1 (SATA (SSD)) 37 °C
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM001-1ER164 (SATA ) 37 °C
931GB Seagate ST31000333AS (SATA ) 40 °C

Optical Drives

TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224DB

Audio

Périphérique High Definition Audio

PSU is Antec HGC520

HDD1 is Seagate ST2000DM001-1ER164
HDD2 is Seagate ST31000333AS
 
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