Disappearing SSD.
Disappearing SSD.
For the last few months, the second M.2 SSD on my photo editing setup keeps vanishing. It still appears in the BIOS but windows looses. it. So I thought, either a faulty SSD or a windows 11 issue. I grabbed another SSD from Crucial and put it in hoping that would be the end of my problems. But no, I still occasionally have to reboot eh PC or sometimes even pull the power. So not sure what to try next. I suppose it could be a motherboard or CPU issue, but odd it does still show in the BIOS. I have updated all the chipset drivers and the bios to the latest release and still the problem persists. So just need thoughts on what to do next. This is an older PC that I only use for photo editing. I has 4*6tb spinning rust in it housing the metric butt ton of photos I take as well as the boot M.2 SSD and a second m.2 SSD that is home to my Lightroom library files. But it is a relatively low spec by modern standards machine otherwise. A gigabyte Aorus x470 with a Ryzen 2700x, 64gb ram and an RTX2600.
Thanks for the insight, it's good to know the system hasn't lost settings. Considering its age makes sense—probably a wise decision. Yes, I own various multimeters and scopes, though I mainly work with mainframes and enterprise storage. As an IT specialist, I rarely use desktops, so I'm not familiar with things like AM4 issues.
I've faced multiple problems with second slot m.2 drives disappearing. It started with Asus AM4 boards—my first one, and even after getting an SSD RMA, it seemed fine. But other brands are likely affected too. My battery voltage dropped to 2.3V, and the issue vanished once I swapped it out. No settings changed or time resets occurred. Edit: As an IT specialist in a hospital, I know these problems can be serious.
Hard Disk Sentinel informs you about the health of your hard disk drives, monitoring performance and detecting potential issues.
Everything seems normal so far. Right now all drives are functioning properly at 100% health, except the boot SSD which is at 98%. The temperature is stable around 32°C, just a bit higher than the room I’m currently in. The issue is sporadic, making it hard to pinpoint. I’m not ready to replace the parts just yet—I was thinking about upgrading to a new Ryzen later this year when prices might drop a little.
Confirmed all drives run the newest firmware. Inspected motherboard for any signs of harm. Performed an SFC/scannow verification.
During extensive troubleshooting with SFC/scannow, progress remained elusive. My focus shifted to the CPU. Initially, I attempted a reseat. The 2700x I received was a replacement from AMD under warranty, sent after the 2600 lost its TPM functionality. AMD confirmed it was defective and provided this model. This occurred just over a year ago. Early on, the CPU resisted working with the memory profile until I swapped both sticks to the incorrect slots as per the manual, and only the wrong ones functioned with the 2600. This raised doubts about its reliability. Despite this, I managed to acquire a 5800x from another system and have maintained my second M.2 SSD without issues. I suspect the 2700x had a problem, but it was a worthwhile upgrade that cost only time. I still keep the 2700x as a backup, confident it will remain unused until the AI apocalypse takes over.