but got it back. It was sort of odd as there was no indication of a drive failure. This was a 4TB drive mounted in my second desktop system that is for backing up a media drive from my main system. For the record all is now fine and dandy.

The drive failed to connect for a backup and I checked File Explorer and the drive did not show. Nor did the drive show in Drive Management. I checked all drive connections and all seemed fine. I powered off the system removing all power and then the system didn't boot with success. I forced a shutdown and started again and all was fine with the drive in question now showing and a backup from my main system went fine.

The system in question is ~8.5 years old and is, of course, close to being at its end of useful life but it still performs well enough for what it is meant to do as a backup system.

Still just dropping a drive seems a bit odd to me. Any ideas of what may have gone down? BTW, the drive in question passed all diagnostics without any errors so I have doubts about the drive actually starting to fail. I'm thinking it was just a glitch due to the age of the system and running Windows 10 on the thing causing a shortage of resources which resulted in the drive being dropped.

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That's an odd one. Like you, I'd suspect the connections first. Since they seemed tight, but the PC didn't boot on the first try, I'm thinking controller or motherboard problem -- if it happens again.
You may recall that a few years ago my main desktop system drive, which is a SSD, failed on me. The oddity is that it was intermittent. The PC would be running fine, then freeze up in Windows. Rebooting would then fail with the drive missing, so no OS. Rebooting again (sometimes many times) the drive would reappear and Windows would run fine until the next mysterious lockup. I suspected a drive problem, so replaced it -- the problem was indeed resolved by replacing the drive.

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stephen boots
Microsoft MVP 2004 - 2020
"Life's always an adventure with computers!"

Back in the days of Windows Vista I had a system with IDE drive connections that just died. Turned out it was just the IDE channel in use went bad on the motherboard. Switched to another IDE channel and all was fine.

I've now done several reboots and syncs without issue so am crossing fingers. From other issues I've had with this system I really think it is just too old. For instance, if you remember, I had (still do) an issue where the thing had to be rebooted every 3-5 days. For a bit I thought that I had that solved but turned out I did not. I mean the thing is 8.5-9 years old. I just hate to replace the thing as it still serves well as a backup system for my media and data.

Anyway, we shall see what we see. So far all seems well...

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I have seen this problem on more than one of my systems, boot/reboot/reboot/startup finally.
I have always found it to be the power supply. On the other hand it always is on a system with an old drive on it.

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I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

William A. Gustafson
I know I have forgotten more than I can ever hope to remember.

Never really considered the power supply. The supply is 650 watt which is plenty for the system but it is ~5 years old. If the issue repeats mayhaps I'll pull the supply and take to a local shop that I trust and have the rails checked on a meter. Would be cheaper than buying a decent meter. Three reasons why I trust this shop...

1) When I built my currently second desktop (was the main at the time) I needed an optical drive. Before ordering on-line I decided to check locally as I already had all the other components; just forgot about the optical drive. Anyway, I checked with them just looking for a DVD burner. They happened to have a Blu-ray drive that had only been used to install Windows and then the client decided they wanted a different drive. Retail on the drive was something like $160.00 and they sold it to me for ~$50.00.
2) Was given a laptop that kept shutting down due to a thermal issue. Thought it was a blown fan and it was a major project to even get to the fan. Took to this shop and the estimate to replace the fan was close to $100.00. Sigh, the previous owner of the system has a lot of dogs and cats. Turned out that the fan was just bound up with pet hair. They cleaned out the fan and all was fine. They only charged me $30.00 or $35.00 for the job.
3) One of the M.2 drives in my main system came without a mounting screw. They gave me one. I asked what they wanted for the screw and the guy just laughed and said something like "It's just a little screw. Get out of here and just have a kind word for us if anyone ever asks.".

Seems like a decent shop to me.

Hope I'm not jinxing myself but I can't remember ever having a hard drive fail. Of course one can go south at any time for numerous reasons.

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