Internal D: drive disappears from time to time

cmart6 · Jan 15, 2025

Fairly often on a newly built system my internal D: drive disappears. In the past, System Restore has worked but now rarely. Other times the D: would be “Offline” which could be fixed in Disk Management. Sometime reboot after shut down works. Is there a way to save (in Disk Management?) a good configuration for the disks so that it can be restored next time D: drive disappears?

Berton · Jan 15, 2025

Insufficient information about the computer in My Computer. What type drive, how is it connected to the motherboard? Not a dumb question but is it an actual second drive or a partition on the only drive? If it is a drive has it been identified correctly in the BIOS? I've never had an issue adding a second internal drive to a computer I built or an OEM machine that had room for it. Modern computers use SATA connections and I was building/repairing IDE/PATA drives back in the '90s.

cmart6 · Jan 15, 2025

Berton, thanks for rapid reply.
I filled in My Computer (didn't know it was there.) I tried to get a file with info from Disk Management but couldn't see a method. So here it is by hand.

Disk 0/Partition 1 is EFI System; Disk 0/Partition 4 is Healthy Recovery; Disk 0/ C: drive is boot drive with no listed partition #. I don't see Disk 0 Partition 3.
Disk 1 is Drive D (Healthy Basic data partition) NTFS 219 GB used, 1730 GB free. Second physical drive.

I've always had trouble getting into BIOS but will try again tomorrow. Supposed to hold down DEL on reboot but rarely gets into BIOS.

System built for me in 8/2024.

Disks 0 and 1 are internal SSDs--I believe attached to mobo but will check. (How else could they get power?)

(Disk 2 is external SSD).

Since you've been building systems from the 1990s, I found the right guy :)

Thanks,
Johanna

Berton · Jan 15, 2025

I was given a custom computer with a Gigabyte board, it uses the Del key for getting into the BIOS. I hold the key down and press the power button to get into the BIOS but sometimes have to press the Del key several times rapidly.

cmart6 · Jan 16, 2025

Berton, I will try your idea for getting into BIOS on my Gigabyte system.
Thanks, Johanna

BamaInArk · Jan 16, 2025

It appears you're using 2 Samsung 990 pro M.2 NVMe drives. With one being the Primary Boot drive and the other one being a secondary Data drive. If the secondary SSD is routinely now showing up it could be signs of a faulty drive. I would recommend disconnecting the external USB drive for system bootup for troubleshooting purposes.
Since you're not a system builder this may be a little tricky. I'd be curious which M.2 slots each of the M.2 drives are connected to. To get into the Bios you must hit the Del key constantly during the boot process not just hit it once. Sometimes if the Bios is set for Fast Start it becomes harder to access the Bios.

One thing I might recommend is to download and install Samsung Magician software to check/test both 990 Pro SSDs. Both may require a firmware update.

You might want to take a Screenshot of the Disk Management screen and post it here for others to see.

cmart6 · Jan 16, 2025

Hi Bamaln Ark:
Thanks for the great post. To start, here's a picture of Disk Management. Then I'll get Samsung's Samsung Magic to diagnose.
I greatly appreciate help from experts like you and Berton.
Johanna

cmart6 · Jan 16, 2025

In BIOS found expected info about 2 internal Samsung NVMe drives. Settings/IO Ports/NVMe/Configuration shows them both.
System Info/Plugin devices/PCIE Slot info: PCIEx6: PCIe 4.0 ; PCIEx4 & PCIEx2: N/A.
M.2 Slot info: M2B: Samsung SSD 990 Pro; M2D: Samsung SSD 990 Pro

BamaInArk · Jan 16, 2025

cmart6 said:
Hi Bamaln Ark:
Thanks for the great post. To start, here's a picture of Disk Management. Then I'll get Samsung's Samsung Magic to diagnose.
I greatly appreciate help from experts like you and Berton.
Johanna

View attachment 122299

From the Disk Management screenshot it appears your Boot drive is not one of the 2TB 990 Pros. It looks to be a 1 TB drive. All fine and dandy except you could add that to your Computer description to be correct. It does look like one of the 2 TB 990 drives is drive D and one is being used as the external USB drive. X9 Pro.
For some reason the Disk 1, "Second" D: drive has 46.59 GB of Unallocated(wasted) space. If your system builder assembled the parts and left it this way....they messed up. Although this shouldn't be the reason the D: drive is sometimes not showing up.

Also you will not be able to update the Firmware on the NVMe drive in the external enclosure. NVMe drives must be directly connected to an M.2 slot to be able to update the firmware.

cmart6 · Jan 16, 2025

1 TB internal drive includes C: 2 TB internal drive includes D: Please ignore "external USB drive. X9 Pro" which is not at issue.

Installed and ran Samsung Magician diagnostics. Both C: (1 TB) & D: (2 TB) passed test. Also applied “Full Power Mode”, which prevents drive from going to sleep. Let’s see how this works.

“recommend disconnecting external USB drive for system bootup for troubleshooting purposes.
Since you're not a system builder this may be a little tricky.”
Don’t understand since all I have to do is unplug external SSD from USB or am I missing something?

I also downloaded firmware. Let me know if I should apply it.

System builder will be here on 1/19/25. I’ll have him check “which M.2 slots each of the M.2 drives are connected to” and also check connection for D: drive.” Will report back by Jan.20.

Thanks, Johanna

cmart6 · Jan 17, 2025

Hi experts Berton and BamalnArk:
I download firmware update for my internal Samsung NVM drives. But it is an .iso file.
I saw this warning on Samsung site:

* Notice: ISO files may be used only via DOS using a bootable CD/DVD

So how the heck do I use this .iso file to update firmware on my two internal drives? Copying the file to a ISB flash drive would not work.

Thanks,
Johanna

Berton · Jan 17, 2025

As far as I know an .iso file is provided by the program's author to facilitate downloading. After that something is used to create the exact copy of the original data. Microsoft's Media Tool Creation tool is one that downloads a Windows .iso file. The disc created from that file is bootable so as to enable installing Windows. Linux distributions are done the same way, download an .iso file and create the disc. In other words an .iso file is not bootable but the disc created from it is.

cmart6 · Jan 17, 2025

" .iso file is not bootable but the disc created from it is."

I will try to do this with a tool called Rufus and let you guys know how it goes.
Hold off: C: drive is not having any issues and has older version of Samsung firmware. D: drive does occasional disappearing acct and has latest firmware. So I won't be doing firmware update on C: at the moment. Samsung Tech Support says: Try the 2 TB D: drive in a different M2 slot.

Thanks, Johanna

BamaInArk · Jan 17, 2025

The Samsung Magician software has a built in firmware updater if the drives require and is available. Let that do the firmware update on those drives.

cmart6 · Jan 17, 2025

Thanks, I just noticed that and hopefully much easier than messing around with ISO files. I spoke with Samsung tech. He said that since I already had latest firmware on 2 TB problem drive D: not to bother with firmware update for now. Move the drive to a different M2 slot (if there is one) and see if that helps.

hsehestedt · Jan 17, 2025

I would suggest taking a look at the Windows Event Log. See if you get anything like an unexpected disconnection of the drive or anything else related to the drive.

As a test, you might also consider connecting that drive to another port (if available) to see if it behaves the same. You could also try an external drive chassis.

cmart6 · Jan 18, 2025

Thanks Hsehestedt:
I will follow up on your ideas. "Consider connecting that D: to another port (if available) to see if it behaves the same." By "another port" do you mean the same as "different M2 slot" as suggested by Samsung tech; or do you have a different meaning?

cmart6 · Jan 18, 2025

On this Windows 11 Pro system (\\capa) I looked in Event Viewer\Windows logs\Application and in Windows logs\System but did not see anything related to D: drive. I did see other errors:
1) Secure Boot not enabled.
2) Windows failed Fast Startup
3) Ethernet Controller–Network Link disconnected.
4) LSA package not signed.

Don’t know much about 4) but likely can ignore. I would like to fix 1) & 2) in BIOS if it can be done. I don’t need Fast Startup.
I’d like to fix 3) as I’ve had issues using a program run from master system on my home LAN. Program runs fine on other slave systems but doesn’t communicate properlywith this slave system (\\capa), although folders on \\capa are viewable and can copy files to and from \\capa to other systems on LAN.

hsehestedt · Jan 18, 2025

cmart6 said:
Thanks Hsehestedt:
I will follow up on your ideas. "Consider connecting that D: to another port (if available) to see if it behaves the same." By "another port" do you mean the same as "different M2 slot" as suggested by Samsung tech; or do you have a different meaning?

Yes, I different M.2 slot.

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