Solved Drive disappears after waking up

When my computer is awakened after sleeping, one of the two drives has disappeared. This just started happening for no apparent reason. The drive can be made to reappear by going to Disk Management and using the Rescan Disks option, or by a Restart. How can I fix this?

Jacobus2 said:

When my computer is awakened after sleeping, one of the two drives has disappeared. This just started happening for no apparent reason. The drive can be made to reappear by going to Disk Management and using the Rescan Disks option, or by a Restart. How can I fix this?

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Well, you could give a bit more information. What type of drive is it. How is it connected etc...

My computer has two drives: an SSD and an HDD. The one that disappears is the HDD SATA drive. Hope that helps.

Are they both internal drives? I'm assuming the HDD is not the system drive ....?

Check the cable connections.

Open Device Manager and let us know error code for the connected HDD.

Post screenshot of Disk Management.

Yes, they are both internal drives. No, the HDD drive is not the system drive. There is no error in Device Manager. After waking from sleep, Device Manager doesn't even list the HDD drive. After I use the Rescan Disks option in Disk Management, when I go to Device Manager the HDD drive then appears.

Here's what Disk Management looks like after I run Rescan Disks. The problem drive is Data (D:):

See if HDD health report using CrystalDiskInfo.

Jacobus2 said:

when I go to Device Manager the HDD drive then appears.

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Is the drive appearing with an error marker in Device Manager before you do the rescan, or is it just not listed?

Have you removed and re-attached all the cables?
Is there another SATA port avaiable?
Can you replace the SATA cable?

Might also be helpful if you complete the details of the device in your profile.

Disable fast startup (within Windows, not the BIOS).

I disabled Fast Startup (that made sense to me as a possible culprit), but sadly, no difference. I disconnected and reconnected the SATA cables but that did not help.

I wonder if this could be a clue. I was following a tip re Power Management of the SATA controller. Well, there is no Power Management tab for this device, but I noticed that it says "Device configured" 8/25, which is about when I started having this problem. (I wonder how that could have happened). Anyway, do think this is a clue? How might I reconfigure back to working properly?

In Device Manager, right click on the drive and select "Uninstall device".

Reboot.

It is interesting that you're a running similar chipset, I'm on X99, but your device manager for your drives is entirely different.

Thank you all for your efforts to help me!
The problem has been found and fixed! The fact that the SATA device was reconfigured in the middle of the night was indeed a critical clue. Here's what Gemini said when given that information:

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What Caused the Device to Reconfigure?
A "Device configured" event indicates that Windows re-indexed or replaced the driver settings for your storage controller. Common causes at 1:24 AM include:

• Background Windows Update: Windows downloaded and installed an automatic background driver update or quality patch overnight, replacing or refreshing your AHCI driver INF file (oem157.inf).

• Power State Reset / Fast Startup Crash: If the system attempted an automated sleep transition or background wake (like a scheduled maintenance task), the storage controller failed to wake cleanly, forcing Windows to re-initialize and "reconfigure" the controller interface upon startup.

Is This the Cause of the Drive Disappearing?

Yes, very likely.

Looking at your screenshot, your storage controller is using an Intel C600+/C220+ series chipset driver from 2017 (Driver Version 5.3.0.1388).

• The Problem: Legacy Intel RSTe (Rapid Storage Technology enterprise) drivers from 2017 were designed for older Windows releases (Windows 7/10) and often exhibit severe power-state bugs in modern Windows 11 updates. When Windows 11 toggles power management states (sleep/wake), this legacy driver fails to send the proper "wake" command to the SATA ports, leaving the secondary drive unpowered until a manual rescan forces a bus query.

How to Fix It

Option A: Switch to the Native Microsoft Standard AHCI Driver (Recommended)

The built-in Microsoft driver is fully compliant with modern Windows 11 sleep/wake cycles and avoids legacy Intel driver bugs.

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When I replaced the Intel driver with the Standard SATA AHCI Controller driver (found on my computer) the problem went away!

Good job diagnosing that one. Interesting issue. I have never seen that.