[W.A.C.]

So weird thing happened to me this morning. When I turned on my computer, I noticed some weird messages before the Windows logo appeared which indicated something went wrong. Once I go to my desktop, I noticed my D drive was missing, but rebooting the PC didn't bring back that weird message and my D-drive acted as normal. Any idea what could have caused this? I'm quite concerned right now, as I really don't want to lose my D.

[Billy]

Quote

I really don't want to lose my D

Heh heh heh.

Anyway, more information is needed here. What kind of drive is your D drive? If it's a optical drive, you probably don't have a lot to worry about. If it's a hard drive or a partition of a hard drive, I'd back up the data just in case. Though if your drive came back and is operating normally (seems to load the same, no strange noises), it's probably fine.

[W.A.C.]

[LINK]

That's my hard-drive. I'm probably going to back up some of my more important data sometime after I do a bunch of scans and whatnot with my computer in case I have a virus or nasty spyware.

[Chibisteven]

When you have more than one hard drive, and one of them fails to spin up upon booting for example it can cause a drive to not appear to the operating system or the computer, it might even go unnoticed to the user if the operating system is on a different hard drive that is perfectly okay. Not all drives make strange noises that are noticeable easily, when something is wrong mechanically. Logic board problems would make no strange noises.

Faulty or corrupt partitions, failing logic boards, loose connections, system configuration problems to name a few. A lot of things can cause a hard drive to become invisible to the user even if it's running correctly.

If you were getting weird messages before the Windows logo showed up, you likely have a failing drive. It's possible for a system BIOS to check the SMART status of your hard drive during a boot and alert you to a problem. My motherboard does support this feature.

I strongly encourage a back up as soon as possible as long as your drive isn't making the click of death (in that case, don't even use it, take it to data recovery center before extensive damage occurs), you should take an opportunity to move stuff to a safe spot.

Back up should always be proactive, frequent, very thorough and well organized. Never reactive. The former offers some protection against surprise system failure, the later is if you're lucky at all to even still access the system should it begin to fail gradually rather than suddenly and completely. Now if you want to guard against fire, theft, or some other natural disasters things get more complicated as you have one back up on site and another off site. If it don't exist in three places at least, it never existed at all.

This post has been edited by Chibisteven: 24 November 2014 - 05:43 PM

[W.A.C.]

I'd love to be able to backup all of my data regularly, but I have 1&2TB hard-drives installed into my computer. Backing all of that up would be expensive.

[Zeether]

Download CrystalDiskInfo and use it to check your HD status. If it's reading "Warning" or worse you're gonna need to find some way to back it up or replace it entirely.

This post has been edited by Zeether: 24 November 2014 - 07:05 PM

[flamewing]

Check what the drive's SMART data says: https://hddguardian.codeplex.com/. Note that these indicators are not perfect, in that it may fail to detect a drive is dying; but if they say your drive is dying, you better believe it.

[Chibisteven]

W.A.C., on 24 November 2014 - 06:46 PM, said:

I'd love to be able to backup all of my data regularly, but I have 1&2TB hard-drives installed into my computer. Backing all of that up would be expensive.

I recommend multiple external solid state storage devices or multiple large capacity flash drives in that case. Something that is large enough capacity that could be divided across without any issues is fine. Write protection is something to consider and so is duplicated 2 or 3 times in case of individual device failure or malware attacks. Burnable media may work but it have to be something like Blu-ray discs in that case to even be useful and not look like a hoarder's house.

Back up stuff you know you either have a hard time replacing or cannot replace at all. Should cut the size a bit.

I have a single 1 TB hard drive and only use 200 GB of it. Only 50 to 60GB, I bother to back up (the other 150 GB is stuff that is easily reinstalled or re-downloaded again with great ease). I keep tabs on everything to see if a developer still supports an application or not and if it was ever any use to me. I concern myself with the personal stuff as being the most important to me. Like all things it slowly gets bigger over time.

This post has been edited by Chibisteven: 24 November 2014 - 07:50 PM

[Axel Letterman]

If your D drive is on the verge of dying, you may want to back it up.


But if it's close to death, then I suggest on following these steps from the link below after you get a new hard drive installed on your computer with a fresh OS installed.

http://lifehacker.co...r-freezer-redux

[Overlord]

I'd also note that backing up 3TB of data isn't necessarily as expensive as you'd think: http://www.newegg.co...=0B1-00HU-00012 $147, and it's a one-off cost.

If you don't need to back up everything (Windows install files, video you could redownload if necessary, etc) or you have less data than the full 3TB, a 2TB drive runs you only $97: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822236629

Combine this with an auto-backup utility like the free version of SyncBack (instructions for setting up an older version are at http://lifehacker.co...your-hard-drive , I use a variant of this guide myself (I run it manually as the drive isn't connected 24/7, also I back up the main HDD to a HDD inside the PC as well as the external)), and you should be pretty much set for data security. Also echoing the advice about data not existing unless it is in at least 3 places.

[W.A.C.]

Zeether, on 24 November 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Download CrystalDiskInfo and use it to check your HD status. If it's reading "Warning" or worse you're gonna need to find some way to back it up or replace it entirely.

Well, this is ironic. I downloaded that program because I'm concerned about the health of my computer, yet attempting to install the program wanted to install OpenCandy which caused my anti-virus program to freak out, so I deleted the exe without even using the program.

flamewing, on 24 November 2014 - 07:06 PM, said:

Check what the drive's SMART data says: https://hddguardian.codeplex.com/. Note that these indicators are not perfect, in that it may fail to detect a drive is dying; but if they say your drive is dying, you better believe it.

Doesn't detect anything wrong.

----------

Regarding backups, I'm going to see what I can do about this situation. My computer is acting really weird. It's very inconsistent whether or not my d-drive is detected when I turn on my computer and I've been having more start up issues lately. I'm so tired of computer issues. I recently spent $40 to have a guy look over my computer to find out what was causing it to frequently not turn on at all and it was a failing power supply. Then it cost me another $80 to have him replace it with a new one. Now I'm having these issues and can't help but wonder what the hell should I do. Like if I should consider just building a new computer altogether. I really don't want to because of money, but with all these stability issues, I'm so fucking sick of this machine not working like it should. It used to be really fast, but nowadays it's slow as fuck and causes me all sorts of issues.

[Chibisteven]

W.A.C., on 28 November 2014 - 06:34 PM, said:

Zeether, on 24 November 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Download CrystalDiskInfo and use it to check your HD status. If it's reading "Warning" or worse you're gonna need to find some way to back it up or replace it entirely.

Well, this is ironic. I downloaded that program because I'm concerned about the health of my computer, yet attempting to install the program wanted to install OpenCandy which caused my anti-virus program to freak out, so I deleted the exe without even using the program.

flamewing, on 24 November 2014 - 07:06 PM, said:

Check what the drive's SMART data says: https://hddguardian.codeplex.com/. Note that these indicators are not perfect, in that it may fail to detect a drive is dying; but if they say your drive is dying, you better believe it.

Doesn't detect anything wrong.

----------

Regarding backups, I'm going to see what I can do about this situation. My computer is acting really weird. It's very inconsistent whether or not my d-drive is detected when I turn on my computer and I've been having more start up issues lately. I'm so tired of computer issues. I recently spent $40 to have a guy look over my computer to find out what was causing it to frequently not turn on at all and it was a failing power supply. Then it cost me another $80 to have him replace it with a new one. Now I'm having these issues and can't help but wonder what the hell should I do. Like if I should consider just building a new computer altogether. I really don't want to because of money, but with all these stability issues, I'm so fucking sick of this machine not working like it should. It used to be really fast, but nowadays it's slow as fuck and causes me all sorts of issues.

It is possible that a failing power supply can actually damage components in a computer and leave residual effects from it or the caps go bad prematurely for some reason, resulting in system stability issues. If the power supply is the wrong one for your system you can have issues with stability, especially with more demanding tasks including strange problems that look like another component is going bad. Power supplies lose load capacity over time and can't handle as big as loads as they age. They can also be defective and might not show defectiveness right away.

The other thing I can think of that it may be time for a reinstall of the operating system. That may cure slow computer problems and stability issues. If your hard disk functions like normal afterwards then it's the cause of your issues. It's worth trying if you don't want to spend money on a new computer as they may make things function like it's new and out of the box again. It will not fix any hardware problems. However if you truly have an issue with your hardware, it's very possible it will certainly make things even worse as you may never make it pass the very stressful task for any computer (installing an operating system), thus you have no computer that does anything except power on passed the BIOS screen which is worse than a computer that barely works or runs slow if you ask me. I recommend stress testing your hardware to see if it there any issues before doing this task in this kind of situation. There is no sure fire to know if this would work. If the computer is only 1 or 2 years old this will save you some money to save up for a new one later on, but if it's 5 or more years this may not be worth the time and effort involved.

Improper BIOS settings can result in a slow computer or stability issues. You really have to be messing around and changing a bunch of stuff to cause this to happen.

Not all failing drives will show a bad SMART status.

Crystal Disk does install adware (don't go next and next) and avoid the OpenCandy versions (ads). Conduit Search can hijack your home page if you let the installer actually install it (uncheck this during install). It's not surprising anti-virus would freak out. I really have no idea why this application is like that. It's why I rarely recommend it to anyone.

This post has been edited by Chibisteven: 28 November 2014 - 10:50 PM

[W.A.C.]

I built my computer over five years ago and it dealt with a failing power supply for much of the year before replacing it because I didn't know what was causing the problem. The power supply was initially the right power supply for the computer, but my guess is the awful electrical at the house must have worn it out. The guy who replaced my power supply did say the one I had was a good power supply, but the one he replaced it with is better so at least my new one is an improvement. I guess I could reinstall my OS, but considering all the start-up issues I've been having as of late, I can't help but be paranoid about the possibility of something going horribly wrong, especially when my graphic design job is dependent on me having access to a functioning computer. Maybe I should take out stock money I've been saving for college and use it to buy components for a new computer. *sighs* Another thing is transferring all this stuff during the process of an OS re-installation would be difficult because I currently don't have a way of backing up everything I want to back up.

[Chibisteven]

W.A.C., on 29 November 2014 - 05:34 AM, said:

I built my computer over five years ago and it dealt with a failing power supply for much of the year before replacing it because I didn't know what was causing the problem. The power supply was initially the right power supply for the computer, but my guess is the awful electrical at the house must have worn it out. The guy who replaced my power supply did say the one I had was a good power supply, but the one he replaced it with is better so at least my new one is an improvement. I guess I could reinstall my OS, but considering all the start-up issues I've been having as of late, I can't help but be paranoid about the possibility of something going horribly wrong, especially when my graphic design job is dependent on me having access to a functioning computer. Maybe I should take out stock money I've been saving for college and use it to buy components for a new computer. *sighs* Another thing is transferring all this stuff during the process of an OS re-installation would be difficult because I currently don't have a way of backing up everything I want to back up.

An electrician might help with the electrical problems, if problems are affecting your home and not anybody else's.

If you can purchase a proper battery back up system, it can reduce damage or stress on future computers (they can get expensive fast the more power you need to keep the computer and monitor from shutting off quickly and the longer the run time, some of them get up on demands on building's electrical system itself). Output power should be enough to keep a system on to safely shut it down (about 10 or 20 minutes) and input power shouldn't exceed the limits of what the electrical system in the building can safely provide for the electrical circuit you're using. This may help if you have poor utility power in your area for computers in the future.

5 years is a decent life span for a computer. I had a computer last 7 years under heavy use (by then it was really showing how dated it was).

This post has been edited by Chibisteven: 29 November 2014 - 01:43 PM

[W.A.C.]

I'd consider doing something about the electrical at my house, but I'm moving in less than two months so it doesn't seem worth it to me. Maybe I need to find a way to at least temporarily back up everything I want saved, reformat the computer, and reinstall the OS. If my computer flat out will not work, then I'll consider my computer beyond help and build a new PC.