Hard Drive Failure Warning - Must Disable in BIOS to Get in Windows

Hi, this morning I suddenly found myself unable to save a project file so I rebooted my computer. I was greeted by this warning which I've never had before. It looks like my main project drive, a 7200RPM 4TB Western Digital, is no longer allowing me to get into Windows. I had to go and disable the SATA6G_5(Grey) in the BIOS in order to get back in Windows, but then of course, Windows doesnt see it, so how can I do a chkdsk?
So... is the drive completely dead? Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot?

I have a backup which should be 98% up-to-date but I really hope I don't have to buy a new drive.
Based on the model number, this looks to be a 2013 model.
Screenshots are attached.

It seems that SMART detected that the drive is failing.
You can't boot if you don't disable the drive on BIOS?
Instead of pressing F1 to enter BIOS, try to press escape.
Normally you can boot if the OS is on another drive.
Try to boot with it enabled and run a diagnostic tool like Disk Sentinel or Seatools

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm traveling so I may not be able to report back til next week.

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Megahertz said:

It seems that SMART detected that the drive is failing.
You can't boot if you don't disable the drive on BIOS?
Instead of pressing F1 to enter BIOS, try to press escape.

Pressing ESC did not do anything! Only key that does anything at this point is F1.

Must be a way to boot even with the drive enabled.
If you enter bios and choose exit without saving, does it boot?

Hi,

Many times a failed disk will prevent windows startup even if it's not the boot / system drive.

Most of the time it's caused by logic board gone bad, since you have a good backup you are ok.
I don't know how it's been used but it feel a little early for a sudden death but 8 years is not that bad.

Go with Western Digital RE / GOLD. HGST Ultrastar. These are the best i used. before that I used Seagate Constellation / ironwolf

Today for me it's a RE / GOLD / Ultrastar. These have high quality Stainless Steel or even silicon nitride bearings.

dalchina said:

Presumably your 'project drive' is a data only disk.
As you can't boot Windows with it in, you could boot your PC from a live boot disk, then see if anything is visible using e.g. Crystal Diskinfo or similar- a typical feature on live boot disks e.g. Hiren's or Bob Omb's.

I'm back and it looks like your lead is the only one I can go on at this point. When you say Live Boot disk, I've already created a rescue media on a USB stick using Macrium Reflect (which I think set up a WinPE). Would this be enough or would I still need to look into using Hirens/Bob Ombs?

If I can't get it back, I would likely get an 8TB of the same (WD Black) approx 275$CAD, so double the space I had... or bite the bullet and get one of the cheaper SSD drives at same storage capacity as before (4TB) approx 450$CAD. I don't know if I would notice much speed difference for such an application, but I probably would when doing backups... though it would be nice to eventually have all my drives be SSD or NVME.

This was a drive I was using for Premiere and Photoshop projects, word docs and spreadsheets, as well as where I store ALL my photos & videos.

Create a bootable WinPE device: Help I can’t get windows to installation screen