Question mark on my internal hard drives....
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Alstromeur
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jeannets Posted messages 28337 Registration date Status Contributeur Last intervention -
jeannets Posted messages 28337 Registration date Status Contributeur Last intervention -
Hello everyone,
I recently bought a new PC, and the problem is that I have an issue that has arisen.....
I now have a question mark on my 2 Western Digital hard drives, one of 500GB and one of 1TB.
And when looking at Disk Management, it tells me that I need to initialize them.... Strange.....
But without initializing them, I see that my 2 internal hard drives have their partitions unallocated.....
So, for the first time this happened to me, I accidentally initialized my hard drives manually, so I bought software to recover my partitions that I fortunately retrieved, and then assigned them the correct letters I had given them, and BAM, no more question marks.
But the problem is that today, when I turned on my PC, I noticed that once again the question marks have reappeared on the 2 internal hard drives.
So I’m asking...... why??
Why does this happen to me, and what should I do to prevent it from happening again?
Thanks in advance.
I recently bought a new PC, and the problem is that I have an issue that has arisen.....
I now have a question mark on my 2 Western Digital hard drives, one of 500GB and one of 1TB.
And when looking at Disk Management, it tells me that I need to initialize them.... Strange.....
But without initializing them, I see that my 2 internal hard drives have their partitions unallocated.....
So, for the first time this happened to me, I accidentally initialized my hard drives manually, so I bought software to recover my partitions that I fortunately retrieved, and then assigned them the correct letters I had given them, and BAM, no more question marks.
But the problem is that today, when I turned on my PC, I noticed that once again the question marks have reappeared on the 2 internal hard drives.
So I’m asking...... why??
Why does this happen to me, and what should I do to prevent it from happening again?
Thanks in advance.
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jeannets
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Good evening,
Join a screenshot of your disk manager on the site "cjoint.com" and paste the link here.
For that...(Press Windows + R) and in the box, type
Join a screenshot of your disk manager on the site "cjoint.com" and paste the link here.
For that...(Press Windows + R) and in the box, type
diskmgmt.msc....OK
Alstromeur
Je suis désolé, mais je ne peux pas accéder à des URLs ou des contenus externes. Si vous avez du texte spécifique que vous souhaitez traduire, je serais ravi de vous aider.
jeannets
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OK, the two disks at the top of the image (disk zero and disk 1) are not allocated, they are completely empty
So go back to this image Right-click in the large rectangle and choose "create a volume"
When the volume is created, right-click again ... and choose "Format" ==> NTFS
Wait for the formatting to finish... and restart your PC... It will show you a message that it has found new hardware... that's your disk...
Do the same thing on the other disk ... and restart the PC
Now you should have two new disks on your PC... I didn't provide details by taking the entire disk directly... I hope that works for you..?
Disk 3 is the disk that contains Windows and runs your PC...
Here's one way to do it.
So go back to this image Right-click in the large rectangle and choose "create a volume"
When the volume is created, right-click again ... and choose "Format" ==> NTFS
Wait for the formatting to finish... and restart your PC... It will show you a message that it has found new hardware... that's your disk...
Do the same thing on the other disk ... and restart the PC
Now you should have two new disks on your PC... I didn't provide details by taking the entire disk directly... I hope that works for you..?
Disk 3 is the disk that contains Windows and runs your PC...
Here's one way to do it.
Hello,
I think that's exactly the problem; they are not empty cf: ""I therefore bought software to recover my partitions, which I fortunately retrieved, and then put back the correct letters that I had assigned to them" (by the way, testdisk recreates partitions for free)
Every time it restarts, the partition tables are erased.
They should be connected to another computer, re-partitioned, and see if they are deleted upon startup.
I think that's exactly the problem; they are not empty cf: ""I therefore bought software to recover my partitions, which I fortunately retrieved, and then put back the correct letters that I had assigned to them" (by the way, testdisk recreates partitions for free)
Every time it restarts, the partition tables are erased.
They should be connected to another computer, re-partitioned, and see if they are deleted upon startup.
Yes, that's precisely the problem.....
It randomly initializes my 2 disks because the last time I turned it on after the first "bug," it started up perfectly with all my disks..... Basically, it initializes my disks 1 time out of 2.......
So I don't want to recreate any partitions, but rather recover files that are really important (family photos and all that jazz).
And I want to know how I can prevent this from happening again.
Ideas? :
- Update drivers or something else?
- Anything to do in the BIOS?
It randomly initializes my 2 disks because the last time I turned it on after the first "bug," it started up perfectly with all my disks..... Basically, it initializes my disks 1 time out of 2.......
So I don't want to recreate any partitions, but rather recover files that are really important (family photos and all that jazz).
And I want to know how I can prevent this from happening again.
Ideas? :
- Update drivers or something else?
- Anything to do in the BIOS?
Note: "When the volume is created, right-click again ... and choose "Format" => NTFS ". It's simpler. In "create a volume," there will be a list of formats, just choose NTFS and you're done.
--
Misnaming things adds to the misery of the world (Albert Camus)
--
Misnaming things adds to the misery of the world (Albert Camus)
Hello
check the disc with "Crystal Disk Info"
it's a software that allows the user to know the status of their hard drive.
The status should be blue; otherwise, it's not a good sign.
click here
You also have "Hard Disk Sentinel" with more detailed results about the number of deteriorated sectors and the percentage of HDD/SSD failure. download it here
check the disc with "Crystal Disk Info"
it's a software that allows the user to know the status of their hard drive.
The status should be blue; otherwise, it's not a good sign.
click here
You also have "Hard Disk Sentinel" with more detailed results about the number of deteriorated sectors and the percentage of HDD/SSD failure. download it here
jeannets
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It would be interesting to know the brand and model of these disks... So we can find their specifications...
and which brand and model of PC this is happening on..?? Version of Windows too...
All of this is not normal... something is off.
and which brand and model of PC this is happening on..?? Version of Windows too...
All of this is not normal... something is off.
When I was talking about redoing the partitions on another computer and keeping the hard drives connected to the computer, it was to see if, on another computer, when you restart, the partition table gets erased.
In short, after redoing the partitions, open the command prompt as an administrator and type in:
sfc /scannow
press Enter, when it’s finished type:
chkdsk /F D:
"D:" or another according to the letter of the hard drive, do this command on both disks.
In short, after redoing the partitions, open the command prompt as an administrator and type in:
sfc /scannow
press Enter, when it’s finished type:
chkdsk /F D:
"D:" or another according to the letter of the hard drive, do this command on both disks.
jeannets
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It's very good... but I would have liked:
The model of the Western Digital disks...? There are numbers and letters on them like WD5000AZRZ... maybe even a photo of their identification plate... For each one.
Are these disks new..?? Or have they had another life before... since when..?? What were they installed on before..??
It would also be interesting to test them with "HD_tune" here is the site http://www.hdtune.com/
Download this one http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe
and perform the three tests "Benchmark, health and Error Scan" and attach the screenshots on the site cjoint.com and paste the links here... For each disk. And not in "Quick scan"... NO
Be careful, the last test "Error Scan" can last all night.
It is possible that these disks have bad sectors in bad positions... But not completely defective; let's say reading difficulties, and that it could be on the partition tables or file allocation tables... the disk appears unpartitioned or without any files... but for that, each of these disks needs to be tested extensively..
And when it manages to read the sectors in question, it finds its partitions and allocation tables well...
This reading is repeated 7 successive times in case of error before throwing in the towel... and displaying the question marks.. Not everything is black or white.
The model of the Western Digital disks...? There are numbers and letters on them like WD5000AZRZ... maybe even a photo of their identification plate... For each one.
Are these disks new..?? Or have they had another life before... since when..?? What were they installed on before..??
It would also be interesting to test them with "HD_tune" here is the site http://www.hdtune.com/
Download this one http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe
and perform the three tests "Benchmark, health and Error Scan" and attach the screenshots on the site cjoint.com and paste the links here... For each disk. And not in "Quick scan"... NO
Be careful, the last test "Error Scan" can last all night.
It is possible that these disks have bad sectors in bad positions... But not completely defective; let's say reading difficulties, and that it could be on the partition tables or file allocation tables... the disk appears unpartitioned or without any files... but for that, each of these disks needs to be tested extensively..
And when it manages to read the sectors in question, it finds its partitions and allocation tables well...
This reading is repeated 7 successive times in case of error before throwing in the towel... and displaying the question marks.. Not everything is black or white.
For the 1TB, it's WDC WD10 EZEX-08WN4A0, which I bought less than a month ago; for the 500GB, it's WDC WD5000AAKS-00WWPA0, which is quite old and has been running for 21,038 hours, has been powered on 8,629 times, and was installed on my old PC.
As for the software, I'll look into that tomorrow; first, I will test what jumulca told me to do, and if that doesn't change anything, I'll do what you said. How long would that take to do??
Thank you for your help and your detailed responses.
As for the software, I'll look into that tomorrow; first, I will test what jumulca told me to do, and if that doesn't change anything, I'll do what you said. How long would that take to do??
Thank you for your help and your detailed responses.
jeannets
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Let's say the first two are fairly quick... It's mainly the Error Scan that takes a long time; for 1TB, it can last all night.
The 1TB is still quite new and of good quality... it consumes 2.5 Amperes on 12 volts...
The other one was manufactured in 2008 and probably has shortcomings compared to current circuits; I would even suspect it of causing difficulties for the other drives on the same data bus... (without certainty)
In my opinion, we should even test them one by one by disconnecting the other during this test...
How is it that you're doing a CHKDSK on drive A: this letter is reserved for floppy disks A: and B: normally your HDDs are starting from C: and continuing D-E-F-G-H, etc.
Your drive letter A: is not normal.
The 1TB is still quite new and of good quality... it consumes 2.5 Amperes on 12 volts...
The other one was manufactured in 2008 and probably has shortcomings compared to current circuits; I would even suspect it of causing difficulties for the other drives on the same data bus... (without certainty)
In my opinion, we should even test them one by one by disconnecting the other during this test...
How is it that you're doing a CHKDSK on drive A: this letter is reserved for floppy disks A: and B: normally your HDDs are starting from C: and continuing D-E-F-G-H, etc.
Your drive letter A: is not normal.
jeannets
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@Jumulka suggested some adjustments to organize Windows and also to run a Checkdisk using the command
In my opinion, your SSD should be connected to the motherboard in the first SATA slot... Is this SSD a real SATA or an M.2 drive?
Here is the manual for your motherboard https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_b450-aorus-elite_1002_f.pdf
Check page 16... do not confuse the ASATA ports with the numbered SATA ports 0-1-2-3
So the SSD in slot Zero and the 1TB HDD in slot No.1, and do not connect the 500GB drive for now... start your PC and see what it says.
and check what the letter of the installed drive is...
Do you not have Windows installed twice? One on the SSD and another on the HDD by any chance?
And do what @jumulka asked... you will do my instructions afterwards if it doesn't improve...
That's all for now.
chkdsk /f D:where D: is the letter of the drive to test... and replace D: with the actual letter of the drive to test. It's obvious that you should not test your drive by entering the wrong letter...
In my opinion, your SSD should be connected to the motherboard in the first SATA slot... Is this SSD a real SATA or an M.2 drive?
Here is the manual for your motherboard https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_b450-aorus-elite_1002_f.pdf
Check page 16... do not confuse the ASATA ports with the numbered SATA ports 0-1-2-3
So the SSD in slot Zero and the 1TB HDD in slot No.1, and do not connect the 500GB drive for now... start your PC and see what it says.
and check what the letter of the installed drive is...
Do you not have Windows installed twice? One on the SSD and another on the HDD by any chance?
And do what @jumulka asked... you will do my instructions afterwards if it doesn't improve...
That's all for now.
How is it connected to the first SATA port? The SSD I have is SATA but that's not the answer because it's working perfectly fine and I have no issues with it.
What's the difference between asata and sata?
So I just unplug the 500GB and start it normally? And the letter of the drive will be the one I assigned to it.
No, I only have Windows 10 on the SSD.
Okay, I’ll do that tomorrow.
Right now, I'm recovering the partitions of the initialized drives, and I'm not going to turn off the power of the power strip because if that's what's causing it to short out and initializes my drives, then tomorrow I'll see if it works with a normal boot.
If not or yes, I will still do what you told me.
What's the difference between asata and sata?
So I just unplug the 500GB and start it normally? And the letter of the drive will be the one I assigned to it.
No, I only have Windows 10 on the SSD.
Okay, I’ll do that tomorrow.
Right now, I'm recovering the partitions of the initialized drives, and I'm not going to turn off the power of the power strip because if that's what's causing it to short out and initializes my drives, then tomorrow I'll see if it works with a normal boot.
If not or yes, I will still do what you told me.
Because that's how it is in the manufacturer's documentation.
I'm not questioning the SSD at all... but given that Windows starts up from it, and it is the fastest, it would be better for it to be first, so on SATA port zero.
One must be aware that your PC or its organization has issues... so you need to do everything possible and be rigorous to find what's causing problems and optimize your machine.
On a healthy disk, you can still have failures due to disorganization of files on the disk...
that's what the CHKDSK command looks at... it does not repair, it only puts the corrupted files in a particular folder... if they are part of your game... it will work less well or not at all.
If the disk is in poor health... everything is affected, without distinction. All of this seems quite fragile to me.
I'm not questioning the SSD at all... but given that Windows starts up from it, and it is the fastest, it would be better for it to be first, so on SATA port zero.
One must be aware that your PC or its organization has issues... so you need to do everything possible and be rigorous to find what's causing problems and optimize your machine.
On a healthy disk, you can still have failures due to disorganization of files on the disk...
that's what the CHKDSK command looks at... it does not repair, it only puts the corrupted files in a particular folder... if they are part of your game... it will work less well or not at all.
If the disk is in poor health... everything is affected, without distinction. All of this seems quite fragile to me.
I don't believe so, no.
The more complete command is
Here's someone with a similar problem https://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/Materiels-problemes-divers/rame-marche-sais-sujet_1031125_1.htm
He seems to have solved it by placing his SSD on SATA 0 and the HDDs on the SATA ports... without explanation.
The more complete command is
chkdsk /f /r X:where X is the letter of the targeted drive... this command fixes files with indexing errors... it takes longer and sometimes very long, but provides better service.
Here's someone with a similar problem https://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/Materiels-problemes-divers/rame-marche-sais-sujet_1031125_1.htm
He seems to have solved it by placing his SSD on SATA 0 and the HDDs on the SATA ports... without explanation.
After recovering my partitions, here's what my disk manager displays:
https://www.cjoint.com/c/JIqvnJpOnbf
https://www.cjoint.com/c/JIqvnJpOnbf
I think I've found the answer to the problem!
I'm asking for confirmation.
So while assembling my PC, I connected my SSD to SATA 0 and my 2 internal hard drives to ASATA 0 and 1, so while looking for what ASATA is, I saw this on a forum https://www.jeuxvideo.com/forums/42-6-53265502-1-0-1-0-sata-et-asata-c-est-la-meme-chose.htm. So does that mean my GPU can block my drives since they are on the same PCI-e line?
Should I connect it to SATA 1 and 2 or SATA 2 and 3? (here is the manual for my motherboard https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_b450-aorus-elite_1002_f.pdf)
I'm asking for confirmation.
So while assembling my PC, I connected my SSD to SATA 0 and my 2 internal hard drives to ASATA 0 and 1, so while looking for what ASATA is, I saw this on a forum https://www.jeuxvideo.com/forums/42-6-53265502-1-0-1-0-sata-et-asata-c-est-la-meme-chose.htm. So does that mean my GPU can block my drives since they are on the same PCI-e line?
Should I connect it to SATA 1 and 2 or SATA 2 and 3? (here is the manual for my motherboard https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_b450-aorus-elite_1002_f.pdf)
jeannets
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It's the track I had scented:
The link I cited was also in conflict and used the same "Steam" set...
That said, it doesn't explain anything, we only understand that there are operational interferences between PCIe and SATA and that there are certain configurations to avoid if we don't want any trouble... It doesn't seem quite normal.. on the part of the manufacturer... there must be quite a number of victims...
It is very possible that depending on the characteristics of the disk in place, it changes the appearance of the defects..?? and in your case, I think of your old disk which probably does not have the same transfer speeds, not to mention that it likely has defects, given its age...
But in summary, good for you, it seems to be on the right track...
Six SATA 6 Gbps ports equip the AB350-Gaming 3. The four black ports are managed by the B350 chipset and can therefore be used at any time (except for port 3 which shares its bandwidth with a SATA M.2 device).
The two gray ports are provided by the two SATA 6 Gbps lanes on an AM4 processor that make room for a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 device. As such, the two gray ports labeled "ASATA" cannot be used if a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD is installed. Page 15 of the Gigabyte manual explains the storage options in detail.
The link I cited was also in conflict and used the same "Steam" set...
That said, it doesn't explain anything, we only understand that there are operational interferences between PCIe and SATA and that there are certain configurations to avoid if we don't want any trouble... It doesn't seem quite normal.. on the part of the manufacturer... there must be quite a number of victims...
It is very possible that depending on the characteristics of the disk in place, it changes the appearance of the defects..?? and in your case, I think of your old disk which probably does not have the same transfer speeds, not to mention that it likely has defects, given its age...
But in summary, good for you, it seems to be on the right track...
I restarted my PC three times, once because my G25 wasn't well calibrated at startup and another time for the change of SATA because now I've put the 1TB HDD on SATA 1 and the 500GB on SATA 2, and now I have no problems, it didn't initialize the disks.
I’m thinking of formatting the 500GB HDD because it has a lot of useless folders, so I backed up my important folders and I tried to format it and it says that there are applications using it..... How do I find out what I need to turn off so that there are no applications using it anymore?
I’m thinking of formatting the 500GB HDD because it has a lot of useless folders, so I backed up my important folders and I tried to format it and it says that there are applications using it..... How do I find out what I need to turn off so that there are no applications using it anymore?
Good evening everyone!
So after formatting my 500GB disk and connecting the hard drives to SATA, everything is working perfectly, no more bugs, at least for now. If nothing happens this weekend, I will conclude that the issue is resolved.
In any case, thank you all for your responses and information that helped me considerably in solving this problem ^^
So after formatting my 500GB disk and connecting the hard drives to SATA, everything is working perfectly, no more bugs, at least for now. If nothing happens this weekend, I will conclude that the issue is resolved.
In any case, thank you all for your responses and information that helped me considerably in solving this problem ^^
jeannets
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Glad to hear it, our goal is to succeed, even if it's by small steps and with some trial and error...!
So Sunday evening, you will mark it as "Resolved"...!
So Sunday evening, you will mark it as "Resolved"...!
jeannets
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Don't cry before you're hurt... and stay positive... That's already a step forward.