# my hard drive briefly disappeared. What should I do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988 "2018-06-12T19:41:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/1 "2018-06-12T19:41:26Z")
I have a laptop with a less than six month old 1TB hard drive in the optical bay. It worked fine up until today, when I tried to access a folder on it and was told it was unavailable. Restarting the computer resolved the issue, for now, but I’m not sure what the next step should be, besides backing up the data. Is it a sign that it’s time for a new hard drive? Disk management says that the drive and all of its partitions are healthy. Are there any other tests I should be running? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/2 "2018-06-12T19:51:34Z")
Really hard to say. Any little glitch could make that happen and it would still be fine. Backing up is certainly step 1. What kind of computer? ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/3 "2018-06-12T20:06:08Z")
It’s an HP 15. I moved the hard drive that shipped with the laptop into the optical drive and installed an SSD for the primary drive. It’s been running in this configuration for about three months now without issues. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/4 "2018-06-12T21:09:46Z")
You might try [CrystalDiskInfo](https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how-to-see-if-your-hard-drive-is-dying/) to check on the health of your drive. If it’s not showing issues I’d probably not worry till I saw the error more than once. Like other software, the driver loaded into memory can get borked up and require a reboot at times for a host of reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/5 "2018-06-13T20:36:45Z")
The drive might be perfectly fine, and your computer had a problem with the disk controller hardware on the motherboard. Those problems are always awful to diagnose because they look exactly like drive problems. If this has only happened once, I’d just not worry about it. (But of course still back up your files. _Always_ have your files backed up.) If it begins happening frequently, then we can put more effort into solving it. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/6 "2018-06-14T00:12:05Z")
Thanks for the reassurance and the link to the program. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/7 "2018-06-14T01:10:06Z")
Occam’s razor suggests to me perhaps a connector between the motherboard and the drive isn’t as well seated as it could be. I’d go along with Blakeyrat up there. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/8 "2018-06-14T01:26:06Z")
I agree: back up your files and see if the problem recurs – it may be just a random fluke. If it does recur, check that the connector(s) is/are firmly plugged in. This is not usually the way hard drives fail. Also: Windows disk management saying the partitions are “healthy” doesn’t really mean a damn thing. Check the Windows system error logs for that time period and see if any problems were logged that might be meaningful. You could also check the disk SMART attributes with a free utility like [HDTune](http://www.hdtune.com/download.html) (scroll down for the free version). ETA: I didn’t notice that someone had already posted a link to a different SMART reporting utility. I don’t know which one is better. HDTune has worked well for me. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-briefly-disappeared-what-should-i-do/815988/9 "2018-06-14T02:20:13Z")
Every hard drive failure I’ve experienced started with symptoms exactly as you describe. Back up all your crucial data **NOW** and pray it was just a glitch. (You should back up all your files on a routine basis anyway, but let’s face it, none of us ever do.) The good news is, if your drive really is failing, you’ll find out very soon, as in hours to days. If the problem doesn’t recur and your drive still working next week, then it probably was just a glitch. ETA: Ok, I just remembered an issue I had where my laptop didn’t recognize the HD right away but the HD was fine. In that case, it was Windows itself that had become corrupted and eventually needed a full re-install. However, the timeline for that was much longer – the problem didn’t recur until several months later, and took several more weeks to become so bad that it required a full Windows re-install. So that _might_ be where you’re headed, but at least in that case, time is on your side.