NVME Drive Disappearing

compgeek89

compgeek89

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 30, 2018
Messages
240
Hey all,

I have a system running:
Intel i7-6900K
Asus X99 Deluxe II
128GB (4x32) DDR4
2x Sabrent Rocket 2TB NVME SSDs
GeForce GTX 1070
PCIe Sound Card (not sure the model off-hand)

I recently moved from two SATA SSDs to the two Sabrent SSDs. The boot ("C:") drive is running in the built-in M.2 slot on the motherboard. Since the X99 Deluxe II is from the early days of NVME support, there is no second slot, so I have a Sabrent PCIe to M.2 adapter installed in PCIe slot #3 for the secondary storage ("D:") drive (I've also tried slot #4 with the same symptoms).

The symptoms:
The boot drive in the built-in slot always works fine, but the secondary drive will, seemingly at random, not be visible at system boot (in BIOS or Windows). Usually, rebooting once the drive has disappeared has no effect, however, powering the machine down and powering it back on often results in the drive re-appearing. It doesn't disappear after boot if it is available on initial system boot (that I have seen), it simply either is present or is not. Although I should note, when I initially used the Windows Partition/Disk Manager to initialize the drive, it disappeared after I created the partition before I could format it to NTFS. But during normal usage, it seems to work fine if it is found initially. Once I got it formatted, I immediately copied 1TB over to it without issue, and continue to be able to use it for daily video work as long as it shows up on boot.

Any thoughts on troubleshooting this one? The list of potential issues I've come up with are (1) bad drive, (2) bad PCIe adapter card, (3) an incorrect BIOS setting, (4) some level of compatibility issues with the dated motherboard and the SSD. I have no other PCIe adapter cards or SSDs to test the first two options, so I'd have to buy additional equipment to do that. Basically, my question is ... what is the most likely issue, where would you start, and is there anything else I might have missed?

Asus x99 Deluxe II manual/resources: https://www.asus.com/us/supportonly/X99-DELUXE II/HelpDesk_Manual/
 
In my experience, that behavior is the final stages of the SSD dying. Before you do anything else, I would strongly encourage you to back up your data.

Other than that, swap the drives in their slots and see if the problem follows the drive or stays with the slot. I would not rule out the pcie m2 adapter - that would be one of the primary suspects.
 
I am considering another m.2 SSD on a PCIe riser card myself. Though the thought of using a 2.5" U.2 NVMe SSD also appeals to me, as my x99 ASUS Deluxe II has ports for that.
I'll keep an eye on this Post for future contemplation... thanks !
BlackDragon
 
compgeek89 said:
Hey all,

I have a system running:
Intel i7-6900K
Asus X99 Deluxe II
128GB (4x32) DDR4
2x Sabrent Rocket 2TB NVME SSDs
GeForce GTX 1070
PCIe Sound Card (not sure the model off-hand)

I recently moved from two SATA SSDs to the two Sabrent SSDs. The boot ("C:") drive is running in the built-in M.2 slot on the motherboard. Since the X99 Deluxe II is from the early days of NVME support, there is no second slot, so I have a Sabrent PCIe to M.2 adapter installed in PCIe slot #3 for the secondary storage ("D:") drive (I've also tried slot #4 with the same symptoms).

The symptoms:
The boot drive in the built-in slot always works fine, but the secondary drive will, seemingly at random, not be visible at system boot (in BIOS or Windows). Usually, rebooting once the drive has disappeared has no effect, however, powering the machine down and powering it back on often results in the drive re-appearing. It doesn't disappear after boot if it is available on initial system boot (that I have seen), it simply either is present or is not. Although I should note, when I initially used the Windows Partition/Disk Manager to initialize the drive, it disappeared after I created the partition before I could format it to NTFS. But during normal usage, it seems to work fine if it is found initially. Once I got it formatted, I immediately copied 1TB over to it without issue, and continue to be able to use it for daily video work as long as it shows up on boot.

Any thoughts on troubleshooting this one? The list of potential issues I've come up with are (1) bad drive, (2) bad PCIe adapter card, (3) an incorrect BIOS setting, (4) some level of compatibility issues with the dated motherboard and the SSD. I have no other PCIe adapter cards or SSDs to test the first two options, so I'd have to buy additional equipment to do that. Basically, my question is ... what is the most likely issue, where would you start, and is there anything else I might have missed?

Asus x99 Deluxe II manual/resources: https://www.asus.com/us/supportonly/X99-DELUXE II/HelpDesk_Manual/
Click to expand...
Have you considered using the U.2 Ports for an Enterprise 2.5" SSD ?
Your board is the same as mine and has ports for those. I'm considering it myself somewhere down the road.
The U.2 ports are located beside the SATA Express header on the leading edge of the mobo and if I recall without consulting the manual, another set of U.2 ports near the onboard m.2 Header.
BlackDragon
 
I've actually come across this exact situation before with my X370, it had something to do with how the PCI-E lanes were split. I think I fixed it by using a PCI-E riser (for the m.2) and forcing PCI-E 8X on my videocard(through BIOS), but its been years.

It was frustrating, but I do remember having to do a reboot loop to "catch" the drive while it had power and then it usually functioned absolutely fine until the computer had to restart again for any reason - then I needed to reboot loop it again to "catch" the drive again if that makes any sense.
 
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Is the temperature of the drive reasonable? On my laptop my WDC black nvme drive disappears if it gets much over 80C.
 
drescherjm said:
Is the temperature of the drive reasonable? On my laptop my WDC black nvme drive disappears if it gets much over 80C.
Click to expand...
Temps were good, never had any temp issues with my M.2 drives, but I tend to use heavy airflow and oversized heatsinks. I value my quietness.

I think these old, early NVME capable motherboards just had issues trying to figure out when to give m.2 slots enough power, especially the hybrid nvme/SATA m.2 slots.
 
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