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?
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
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 :)
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
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
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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
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.
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.
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
" .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.
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
64GB (Waiting for warranty replacement of another 64GB for 128GB total)
Graphics Card(s)
No GPU - Built-in Intel Graphics
Sound Card
Integrated
Monitor(s) Displays
HP Envy 32
Screen Resolution
2560 x 1440
Hard Drives
1 x 1TB NVMe SSD
1 x 2TB NVMe SSD
1 x 4TB NVMe SSD
3 x 512GB 2.5" SSD
1 x 4TB 2.5" SSD
5 x 8TB Seagate Barracuda HDD
PSU
Corsair HX850i
Case
Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case
Cooling
Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Home Computer Specifications, Configuration, and Usage Notes General Specifications ASUS Prime Z590-A motherboard, serial number M1M0KC222467ARP Intel Core i7-11700K CPU (11th Gen Rocket Lake / LGA 1200 Socket) 128GB Crucial Ballistix RGB DDR4 3200 MHz DRAM (4 x 32GB) Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black CPU cooler Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Corsair LL-120 RGB Fans (Qty. 3)
Keyboard
Corsair K70 Max RGB Magnetic Keyboard
Mouse
Logitech MX Master 3
Internet Speed
1Gb Up / 1 Gb Down
Browser
Edge
Antivirus
Windows Defender
Other Info
The five 8TB drives and three 512GB SSDs are part of a DrivePool using StableBit DrivePool software. The three SSDs are devoted purely to caching for the 8TB drives. All of the important data is stored in triplicate so that I can withstand simultaneous failure of 2 disks.
Networking: 2.5Gbps Ethernet and WiFi 6e
Operating System
Win11 Pro 23H2
Computer type
Laptop
Manufacturer/Model
Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 2
CPU
Intel i7-1255U
Memory
16 GB
Graphics card(s)
Intel Iris Xe Graphics
Sound Card
Realtek® ALC3306-CG codec
Monitor(s) Displays
13.3-inch IPS Display
Screen Resolution
WQXGA (2560 x 1600)
Hard Drives
2 TB 4 x 4 NVMe SSD
PSU
USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 Power / Charging
Mouse
Buttonless Glass Precision Touchpad
Keyboard
Backlit, spill resistant keyboard
Internet Speed
1Gb Up / 1Gb Down
Browser
Edge
Antivirus
Windows Defender
Other Info
WiFi 6e / Bluetooth 5.1 / Facial Recognition / Fingerprint Sensor / ToF (Time of Flight) Human Presence Sensor
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?
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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.
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX™ 4070 Super EVO OC Edition 12GB GDDR6X
Monitor(s) Displays
Old VGA
Screen Resolution
1680 x 1050
Hard Drives
C: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
D: (boot drive) X SAMSUNG 990 PRO w/ Heatsink SSD 2TB, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive;
PSU
Cooler Master V750 SFX Gold Full Modular, 750W
Case
NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid-tower
Cooling
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Cooler + case fans
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?
64GB (Waiting for warranty replacement of another 64GB for 128GB total)
Graphics Card(s)
No GPU - Built-in Intel Graphics
Sound Card
Integrated
Monitor(s) Displays
HP Envy 32
Screen Resolution
2560 x 1440
Hard Drives
1 x 1TB NVMe SSD
1 x 2TB NVMe SSD
1 x 4TB NVMe SSD
3 x 512GB 2.5" SSD
1 x 4TB 2.5" SSD
5 x 8TB Seagate Barracuda HDD
PSU
Corsair HX850i
Case
Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case
Cooling
Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Home Computer Specifications, Configuration, and Usage Notes General Specifications ASUS Prime Z590-A motherboard, serial number M1M0KC222467ARP Intel Core i7-11700K CPU (11th Gen Rocket Lake / LGA 1200 Socket) 128GB Crucial Ballistix RGB DDR4 3200 MHz DRAM (4 x 32GB) Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black CPU cooler Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Corsair LL-120 RGB Fans (Qty. 3)
Keyboard
Corsair K70 Max RGB Magnetic Keyboard
Mouse
Logitech MX Master 3
Internet Speed
1Gb Up / 1 Gb Down
Browser
Edge
Antivirus
Windows Defender
Other Info
The five 8TB drives and three 512GB SSDs are part of a DrivePool using StableBit DrivePool software. The three SSDs are devoted purely to caching for the 8TB drives. All of the important data is stored in triplicate so that I can withstand simultaneous failure of 2 disks.
Networking: 2.5Gbps Ethernet and WiFi 6e
Operating System
Win11 Pro 23H2
Computer type
Laptop
Manufacturer/Model
Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 2
CPU
Intel i7-1255U
Memory
16 GB
Graphics card(s)
Intel Iris Xe Graphics
Sound Card
Realtek® ALC3306-CG codec
Monitor(s) Displays
13.3-inch IPS Display
Screen Resolution
WQXGA (2560 x 1600)
Hard Drives
2 TB 4 x 4 NVMe SSD
PSU
USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 Power / Charging
Mouse
Buttonless Glass Precision Touchpad
Keyboard
Backlit, spill resistant keyboard
Internet Speed
1Gb Up / 1Gb Down
Browser
Edge
Antivirus
Windows Defender
Other Info
WiFi 6e / Bluetooth 5.1 / Facial Recognition / Fingerprint Sensor / ToF (Time of Flight) Human Presence Sensor