HDD unmounts on restart. Empty 'Local Disk' icon stays w/errors

Jasong222 · 12 Feb 2021

So frustrated right now.

Ok, so I've been having a string of hard drive problems. The history of how I got to my current problem is below, at the end of the main post.

Windows 10 Home (20H2 OS build 19042.804)
Lenovo Ideapad 720s (laptop)

The current problem is that I have a Western Digital 4T My Passport (portable) HD that I'm using to backup some other drives for testing. But with this drive (and a previous drive), I'm having a problem. I came back to my computer today and the drive had unmounted itself. The drive (or partition), is visible in Disk Management but has no drive letter attached to it. I've used two tools to restore the partition/drive. But if I restart, the drive is again unmounted when the system comes back. But if I shut down instead of restart, and turn on again, then the drive does appear, once. If I shut down and turn on AGAIN, the drive again disappears.

I've tried two programs to restore the partition- "Find and Mount" (Atola Technologies), and Minitool Partition Wizard 12. Minitool seems to work better, I was able to shut down and turn on the computer twice before the drive disappeared. With Find and Mount I was, so far, only able to shut down and turn on the machine once before the drive disappeared. Using either program, restarting, not shutting down, will cause the drive to unmount on reboot.

There are no errors in Device Manager. I have reset BIOS settings to default. I have disabled 'selective suspend' (Power Options -->Change plan -->Advanced settings--> USB settings-->Selective suspend.) Western Digital drive tools shows the drive as healthly. CrystalDisk Info shows the drive as all good. Nothing seems to work. Chkdsk (properties-->drive tools) says the drive does not need to be scanned because it's healthy. "Update drivers" gives me "You have the most recent drivers installed."

AND NOW! I noticed that I'm using the same drive letter as the drive always had. I remember that a couple times before, when trying to remount, when selecting a drive letter, that the driver letter the drive usually had was not available, not listed. This has not happened recently, but I thought- maybe changing the drive letter might help. So I gave the drive a different letter. Old/original letter was 'W'. New letter is 'U'. When it changed the letter to U, the drive shows up under "This PC" window as it should. But it now also continues to show an icon for 'W'. It says "Local Disk (W:)". When I click on that, I get an error- W is unavailable, make sure the disk is connected. 'W' should no longer exist.

Clicking 'local disk' get's me:

So I rebooted again. Again, 'Local Disk (W:) is there, along with the now "U" drive. So I go to safely remove 'U'. The drive disappears, but NOW there's a 'Local Disk (U:)' icon as well! Giving the same error that I get with 'W'.

AND somewhere in this process I had the drive showing up fine in "This computer" AND at the same time being unmounted in Disk Management!

EDIT: Ok, so after- Changing the drive letter from W to U, safely removing 'U', (this is where I got two 'local disk' icons, one for W and one for U, I rebooted again. And this time there are NO local disks. So the misplaced local disks have disappeared.

But the WD drive is, again, unmounted. I'm at wits end. How to keep this drive mounted after rebooting???!
-------------------------------------------

So before this, just as background, in case something here is related- I recently had my boot disk (a 256 Intel nvme m.2 ssd) drive stop booting on me. Eventually I restored it from a backedup image, thanks to some good folk at TenForums, and at the same time upgraded to a larger Samsung SSD. Got everything up and running, booting, no problems.

Then I had a WD 5T portable hard drive with my movie collection on it start to give me errors. Brand new drive. Some movies would stutter, if I tried to RichCopy stuff off the drive the receiving drive would unmount, chkdsk would fix errors but then need fixing again on reboot. So I borrowed a drive from a guy and used TeraCopy to copy my movies over to his drive. All files copied without skips or errors. And that's when THIS 4T WD drive started unmounting.

I have a wonky setup with several drives, a USB/monitordock, two monitors, a 2-bay drive dock, etc. But these drives are plugged directly into the laptop.

I'm at a loss. Can anyone suggest anything?

Macboatmaster · 12 Feb 2021

Lenovo Ideapad 720s (laptop)
Does the 4TB WD drive connected USB rely on only ONE USB port for power and data
From WD

My Passport and WD Elements Portable devices may benefit using a Power Booster Cable to use two USB ports, in order to provide extra power to the device

The Power LED is On but the drive is not accessible

IMHO on first appearance it MAYBE that you are simply requiring too much power from the USB hub/s on that laptop

This will help you understand the problem I THINK you maybe experiencing
external hard drive - How much power does a Western Digital Passport Essential SE require? - Super User

The power available to the drive is not sufficient.
It then resets itself and each time that occurs the old drive letter is replaced by what the system thinks is a newly connected USB device/drive.

This of course presumes that other than the hub and the power issues outlined - there is NOT a fault on the laptop system board/ram/usb ports.

Jasong222 · 12 Feb 2021

Macboatmaster said:

Lenovo Ideapad 720s (laptop)
Does the 4TB WD drive connected USB rely on only ONE USB port for power and data
From WD

This of course presumes that other than the hub and the power issues outlined - there is NOT a fault on the laptop system board/ram/usb ports.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Funny you should say that because I was wondering about electricity stuff with these as well. But after a little experimentation based off your comments, I don't think that's ultimately the issue.

So no, it's not a dual usb/port usb cable for extra power. It's just the one. But I've tried the process (mount the drive, shut down and restart, twice) with the drive in 3 different places: plugged into the laptop directly, plugged into a Plugable brand USB multi-port that has it's own power source, and that has had everything else unplugged from it, and a little Anker USB multiport also with it's own power supply, with the other ports also empty.

Exact same behavior each time: The drive shows up on shut down and turn on the first time. When I shut down and restart a second time, it disappears. And if I restart instead of shutdown, the drive disappears the first time.

If it were electric... I'd think the pattern of failure would not be so concrete. It would work a bit, fail a bit, work a bit, etc. Or work-work-fail, work-work-fail. Plus, if I don't reboot, I can still use the drive. I've backed up almost 4T to it before the problem started.

I'm far and away no expert, but I think about if some kind of file isn't being written somewhere that remembers what this drive is and where it goes. Not the drive mechanically, but something else. A system file? Maybe I'll run scannow just for shoots and giggles...

Happy to try other suggestions...

Macboatmaster · 13 Feb 2021

Does the drive show the same problems when connected to another computer
The fact that this laptop also exhibited problems with the boot drive may suggest there are problems with the hardware of the laptop
When you say you have backed up almost 4TB to the drive before the problem started - how much free space is there on the drive.

Try turning off - fast start
Turn On or Off Fast Startup in Windows 10

Jasong222 · 13 Feb 2021

Macboatmaster said:

Does the drive show the same problems when connected to another computer
The fact that this laptop also exhibited problems with the boot drive may suggest there are problems with the hardware of the laptop
When you say you have backed up almost 4TB to the drive before the problem started - how much free space is there on the drive.

Try turning off - fast start
Turn On or Off Fast Startup in Windows 10

Great suggestions. I have not tried this drive on another computer. I have one, I should do that. I will do that.

I'll try the fast startup setting also. Those settings may have played a role with some problems I was having when I first got the Plugable brand USB dock. I did change the sleep settings back to default, and I changed a setting in one of my monitors that did...<something> around sleep and those changes fixed the problems I was having then.

Although I don't think it's a problem with the laptop hardware. Certainly I hope it's not, lol.. But that gets into a bit of the backstory to explain.

Had the computer now... a couple years. No problems so far. I did buy this USB dock recently- Amazon Link
My problems started soon after getting this dock. So far, I think "pebcak" was the reason for the problems. There have been times when the laptop gave me usb unplugging and replugging sounds over and over, the monitors disconnect and reconnect, drives plugged into the dock would disappear. Not unmount, just disappear until unplugged and replugged back in. I think I was using the dock wrong a couple times. I also have a keyboard/mouse switch between my personal and work computers. So like, for while I think I had both ends of the switch plugged into the dock, when one end should have gone to my other laptop, and that was sending wonky signals to the laptop. Anyway, long story short I think I might have gummed up the device chain a couple times by how I had all my devices hooked up. I'll spare you the whole setup, lol. But so far, that's what I think caused the laptop to go bad. The system started crashing, and pretty quick started booting into recovery mode.

So I got a new SSD and recovered a recent backup image to the new, larger SSD. Everything great for a few days. I also have a 5T portable drive that has my movie collection on it. This drive goes back and forth between my Nvidia shield and my PC when I copy movies, or roms, or pics, etc. over to it. I noticed that some files were playing with stutters, and when I checked the drive with chkdsk (propteries-->disk tools), Windows would say there were errors. It fixed the errors but they would reappear on reboot. I tried copying stuff off that drive to some other drives and I would get errors. The 5T is under warranty and not that I've copied everything off it it's eligible for an RMA.

That's when I borrowed a portable 4T (not 5, like my media drive), and started copying stuff over from the 5T to the 4T. It's the 4T now that's giving me this 'won't stay mounted on reboot' error. I really hope the problem isn't with this borrowed 4T. Because it's not mine and I have to return it. Because the guy used it for years as a main storage drive and as far as he's concerned it's definitely working.

So yeah, tl/dr - a few drives going wonky, lots of suspects- dock, pc, how I had everything hooked up, etc. When copying stuff off the media drive, I tried to keep everything 'clean'- unplugged everything I wasn't using, tried to plug into the laptop directly with as much as I could, tried to avoid using docks and bays, etc.

Macboatmaster · 13 Feb 2021

I do not think you have actually answered this question - if you have I have mnissed it in your reply

When you say you have backed up almost 4TB to the drive before the problem started - how much free space is there on the drive.

Plus re this

So I got a new SSD and recovered a recent backup image to the new, larger SSD. Everything great for a few days. I also have a 5T portable drive that has my movie collection on it. This drive goes back and forth between my Nvidia shield and my PC when I copy movies, or roms, or pics, etc. over to it. I noticed that some files were playing with stutters, and when I checked the drive with chkdsk (propteries-->disk tools), Windows would say there were errors. It fixed the errors but they would reappear on reboot. I tried copying stuff off that drive to some other drives and I would get errors. The 5T is under warranty and not that I've copied everything off it it's eligible for an RMA.

it depends on what errors it reports it has fixed.
If it was a chkdsk /r and it reported bad sectors and then continued to say errors have been repaired.
It has not of course repaired bad sectors.
It cannot do so.
It copies data from them and marks them as bad.
However when and if other sectors go bad the errors return.

On the other hand if it is only file errors, then those can be caused by the connection problems and are found as errors -
which are repaired UNTIL of course the next error occurred.

The test is to run the makers disk diagnostic after checking the chkdsk report.

Jasong222 · 13 Feb 2021

Macboatmaster said:

I do not think you have actually answered this question - if you have I have mnissed it in your reply

Plus re this

<snip>

The test is to run the makers disk diagnostic after checking the chkdsk report.

Firstly, just wanted to say thank you for hanging in here and helping me out with this. The only thing more frustrating than a computer problem is when you're on a thread to troubleshoot it and the thread goes dark. So, I appreciate your help, for sure!

Oop, sorry, yes, you are correct, I missed that. 544 Gb free of 3.6 T . The drive shows 'blue' in "This PC".

Tried some things, and made a troubleshooting mistake.

A. Testing on another laptop. (And older Dell i5 w/Windows 10 Home)

Two attempts:

1- Ran Minitool partition wizard on the Dell laptop. Assigned a drive letter.
Shut down and turned on - Drive appears
Shut down and turned on again - Drive appears (This is the most number of times that it's appeared after shutdown)
Shut down again - Windows decides it needs to update some stuff and does that. Drive does not reappear on startup.

2-Ran Minitool partition wizard on the Dell laptop. Assigned a drive letter.
Shut down and turned on - Drive appears
Shut down and turned on again - Drive appears (This is the most number of times that it's appeared after shutdown)
Shut down and turned on again, two more times, and the drive appears, both times. (This has not happened among the recent tests/problems.
Restart instead of Shut down - The drive disappears again. (So far, this has always happened on restart.)

So I went back to the Lenovo, my main laptop.

1 - Changed the power saving setting you mentioned and turned it off.

And: (And this is the mistake- making changes to two things while testing instead of one thing at a time)

2 - I noticed that the partitions on the drive go: 200 Mb (unallocated) | Main partition ~ 3.7 gigs (the one with all the problems. The one that has my files on it) | 128 Mb (unallocated)

So what I did was I expanded the big/main partition into the first 200 Mb unallocated partition. Under the idea that maybe the first partitions on the drive have to 'be something'; that having an unallocated portion of the drive be the very first part might cause problems. This is what I ended up with:

Then I assigned a drive letter and shut down and turned on again.
Now, the drive doesn't show up, just the empty 'local disk' icon (Drive 'X'):

So now I'm running a 'medium' partition scan on the drive, again, to try to figure this new thing out. It's at 40% now and should finish in 30 minutes or so.

------------

Re: Your comments about chkdsk. I ran chkdsk from here:

I'm told that this tool is basically Chkdsk with a GUI front end and built into Windows. This was the window that ran the check, told me there were errors that were corrected. And on reboot I ran it again from here, and got the same message, that there were errors and that they were fixed. I didn't do it every time, but at least once, a while ago, I ran chkdsk from here, got the message that errors were fixed, and then scanned the drive again immediately. There were no errors that time. When I rebooted and ran the scan again, there were errors. I don't know what /f /r /b, etc. this tool uses.

And just for posterity, here is my thread trying to figure out how to restore a system image when my boot drive starting booting into recovery. Just for posterity, and for whatever degree that problem may be related to this problem. Link Here

Edit: Oh- The drive has always passed Western Digital's drive diagnostics. All the drives wtih issues have. At every point I've run them. So far, anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

Was poking around a bit and saw this:

Caution

Changing the gpt attributes might cause your basic data volumes to fail to be assigned drive letters, or to prevent the file system from mounting. We strongly recommend that you don't change the gpt attributes unless you're an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or an IT professional who's experienced with gpt disks.

From here: links about diskpart

Maybe one of the mounting programs I used gummed up the gpt attributes?

Macboatmaster · 13 Feb 2021

The reference to the GPT file system refers to the OS boot drive
You can make that drive GPT as against MBR
However NOT safely with data on it.
There is no benefit to making it GPT in respect of this problem

The errors shown on the chkdsk are I am sure the cause of the problem, although what is causing the errors is at this time unknown

I recommend a ram check
Go here
MemTest86 - Official Site of the x86 and ARM Memory Testing Tool
put it on a flash pen drive as described boot the computer from the USB and run TWO complete passes on MEMTEST each pass consists of 10 -12 tests
On the images on this link
MemTest86 - Official Site of the x86 and ARM Memory Testing Tool
Look at the main menu image and you can see that it is 76% on the first test progress and has not even yet registered a percentage progress for the pass
So you run it until it is 100% for the pass and you will see that progress as each test in that pass completes to 100%.

In case you do not know you make the USB as here
MemTest86 - Creating a MemTest86 boot disk in Windows
which contains the rest of the instructions for using memtest.

IF that passes the two complete PASSES each of 11-12 tests then we will progress to further analysis and tests

Macboatmaster · 14 Feb 2021

Having read through the topic again and your earlier topic where you had the problem with the OS drive, I suggest you follow this - AFTER you have run the memtest and ONLY if that shows no errors.

Convert 4TB hard drive to GPT without data loss in Windows 10
on this link here
How to Use Full 4TB Hard Drive on Windows 10?
using the
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, free partition software

NOT the diskpart clean cmd as that will CLEAN - the drive and you will lose all data.

I do not think YOUR problem is the drive in MBR - Master Boot Record BIOS partition table
However if you do convert GPT - Globally unique Identifier Partition Table - then we can be certain that the problem is NOT the 2TB limit.

ALTHOUGH the suggested free software above should leave your data on the external drive intact it would be BEST ADVICE to back up that data - UNLESS of course you still have that data on the other drive that was originally in use - I think that was the 5TB.

Jasong222 · 14 Feb 2021

Macboatmaster said:

Having read through the topic again and your earlier topic where you had the problem with the OS drive, I suggest you follow this - AFTER you have run the memtest and ONLY if that shows no errors.
<snip>
ALTHOUGH the suggested free software above should leave your data on the external drive intact it would be BEST ADVICE to back up that data - UNLESS of course you still have that data on the other drive that was originally in use - I think that was the 5TB.

TL/DR - Ran the memtest, no errors. Will follow your suggestion about changing the table. I will have to move anything off that drive, and I'll want to run some checks on the receiving drive first. That will take a fair amount of time.

Ok, so the memory test- Ran fine, passed with 0 errors.

It ran for 4 passes. (I just let it run and forgot about it for a couple hours.)

re: my gpt link : That wasn't so much as gpt itself, but just diskpart and the idea that some file at the beginning of the drive that tells the pc what's up with the drive might have gone wrong somehow. The 2T limit for gpt seems like that shouldn't be the problem.

I can move everything off the loaner-user for backup-4T. But I moved the data off the other drives, it doesn't exist there. I was using a new copy program (TeraCopy) and wanted a check in case any files didn't copy. Files remaining on the drive would be the check.

On the backup loaner, there's data from 2 places, the 5T movies disk and from another 4T external that I have in a dock. The 4T external-in-a-dock was the original planned backup location for the movies disk. But I was getting some weird copy errors when I tried it. They were minor and I don't want to start down that path in this thread. I can move everything to that drive.

But I will want to run some checks on that drive, just in case. I'll probably run chkdsk /b /x or maybe chkdsk f/ x/ and then, maybe, a free program like Macrorit Disk Scanner. I'm getting familiar with chkdsk through this and my previous issue, lol...

Then move 'everything' over to that disk. As mentioned, that will take some time. 24, 32, hours. Scans and copying can run ~10=12 hours each for 4T, as you know. Maybe I'll post "scan x done" or something as I'm going just by way of update.

Ok, I know what I'm doing. I'll be back. Thanks!

-J