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So I have a desktop PC with an SSD and an HDD. Windows 10 is installed on the SSD, all my data is on the HDD. Today while I was playing a game, it suddenly became unresponsive. At the same time, the video I was watching on my second monitor froze as well. The game is installed on the hard drive, the video file was on that hard drive as well. Both programs became unresponsive, while all other programs that are installed on the SSD continued to run fine. After about 2 minutes, the game crashed and the window disappeared, along with VLC player (which was playing the video file). I checked the Explorer, and the E: and D: partitions on that hard drive didn't show up anymore.
So I rebooted and the drive shows up again. . I ran CHKDSK on the drive, which ran fine and returned no errors or bad sectors (CMD output below). I also installed SeaTools and ran a couple of the simple tests on the drive, all of which ran fine and didn't show any error.
So now I'm not sure what to do. All my data is continuously backed up, so if the drive crashed and didn't come back, I wouldn't lose much. Since the SSD doesn't seem to be affected, I could probably just install a new hard drive without even having to reinstall Windows. But of course I don't want to throw away a perfectly good 2 TB hard drive, and since everything seems to be fine ...
What could have caused this problem? How likely is it that it was a software defect rather than a hardware problem? I noticed earlier that the video froze a couple of times, but I was copying some files and downloading some other stuff, so that's not that unusual ... are there any other diagnostics I can perform to see if there's a problem with the hard drive? Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk D: /F
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first.
ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) Y
Volume dismounted. All opened handles to this volume are now invalid.
Volume label is Data.
Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
220416 file records processed.
File verification completed.
360 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
273218 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
26402 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
37481040 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.
1400318975 KB total disk space.
1195790564 KB in 192027 files.
63504 KB in 26403 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
365935 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
204098972 KB available on disk.
4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
350079743 total allocation units on disk.
51024743 allocation units available on disk.
You were pushing the graphics setup quite hard - What graphics hardware do you have – JohnnyVegas – 2017-11-12T19:53:05.667
From experience, an issue with graphics board can be discarded. The only things left is harddrive, mainboard, cabling and power supply. Did you just experience this error one single time? – Harry – 2017-11-12T20:04:57.343
@JohnnyVegas I have a GTX 970. I doubt that it's an issue with the graphics card though. The video was in SD, and the game was Borderlands 2, which isn't that demanding. Those shouldn't even put the GPU under much stress. – MoritzLost – 2017-11-12T20:25:50.133
@Harry yes, only this once. Though I had the feeling that there were some performance issues with video playback, some lagging/freezing ... though this could also be a file-related issue – MoritzLost – 2017-11-12T20:26:47.863
You want to chat? – Harry – 2017-11-12T20:28:35.340
58“All my data is continuously backed up” FINALLY someone who does it. :D It's comforting to read your message after a lot of [tag:data-recovery] questions. :P – Andrea Lazzarotto – 2017-11-13T01:00:37.690
How old is the computer? What's your motherboard model (or the SATA chipset if you know it)? Also, yes, thank you for being one of the few to have backups :) now would be a good time to test them and make sure they actually have the files you need and are restoreable. – Bob – 2017-11-13T02:23:35.077
@AndreaLazzarotto Incremental, de-deduplicated, encrypted backups to local and off-site storage that run every day. Ain't gonna lose all my photos over some hardware failure – MoritzLost – 2017-11-13T09:51:04.827
@Bob About two years old. Can't check my motherboard right now, but it was new at the time as well, definitely shouldn't fail after two years ... I did test my backups directly after the crash, it's working! – MoritzLost – 2017-11-13T09:52:10.473
1If it's a Seagate 2TB drive, it isn't "perfectly good". The Seagate desktop drives from that era have a habit of failing frequently. – Mark – 2017-11-13T09:53:31.587
1@Mark WesternDigital Green 2TB, should be fine – MoritzLost – 2017-11-13T09:56:03.113
1What makes you think this problem has anything to do with the hard drive? To me it sounds like you simply overheated (or triggered a bug in) your graphics card, which is not terribly surprising considering what you were doing with it. Reboot and move on? – Lightness Races with Monica – 2017-11-13T11:03:45.630
4@LightnessRacesinOrbit Why would an error with the graphics card cause the hard drive or the mapping of partitions to drive letters to crash? – MoritzLost – 2017-11-13T11:22:09.270
Have you tried turning the computer off (at the mains) and then turning back on again? – Armada – 2017-11-13T12:17:20.233
1@MoritzLost: Read harry's answer. The computer isn't a series of unconnected parts. – Lightness Races with Monica – 2017-11-13T14:03:40.310
One other potential cause: a shaky power supply could potentially have caused the drive to "skip a beat" under a heavy load, which could cause errors in the filesystem journaling. Very unlikely in your case, IMO (considering your video hardware and the game you had running), but worth considering if you're running a cheap PSU. – Shamtam – 2017-11-13T21:45:51.340
That's happened to me (on a mechanical drive) when the SATA cable was loose. Double-check that before you panic. – user253751 – 2017-11-14T04:44:52.070
Sounds like the disk controller on the motherboard may be failing. If this is the case it's likely that the motherboard will have to be replaced. Best of luck. – Bob Jarvis - Reinstate Monica – 2017-11-15T12:58:05.923