C:\ drive disappeared after system crash while FFS was running

[sebarious]

I only installed this program yesterday after searching online for software that would compare the contents of two folders and sync if necessary. I used it last night successfully. So today I did a compare for a folder and its backup, which showed me they were quite different, but I knew that anything new was on the left folder, so I set the sync to only update the backup. It gave me a message saying that they were very different so it was going to take a while. I clicked OK. This was going to be a sync between a folder in my home folder in the C:\ drive, which is a Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB, to a Seagate USB 3 drive with 16 TB. Obviously that means that the SSD was going to be working at far less than its top I/O, because the Seagate is a mechanical hard drive, a very fast one, but at best it goes up to 250 MBps, while the SSD tops at 7 GBps, so there's no comparison. The machine has three other SSDs, all Samsung 990 EVO 4 TB each.

So the sync started going while I was watching TV next to the desk, and at one point like ten minutes later something catches my attention. I see that the computer had rebooted itself, and went straight into the BIOS. I built this machine in January and ran all the hardware stress testing I could find, including Memtest86+, which comes in the motherboard, then Prime95 and so on. Everything came back perfectly fine. Before this surprising reboot, there had been just one more, a few weeks after I built the machine, but other than that, nothing. And I punish this machine with all kinds of things, games in 4K with most settings at their highest, MIDI mockups in Cubase Pro with projects that can take up to 178 GB of RAM, video editing in DaVinci Resolve, compositing in Fusion Studio and so on. Stable as it can be. Obviously I set the BIOS to conservative settings, I don't care about the highest speed if the machine is going to crash. The computers I build last over a decade because I don't overclock or any of that, I buy the best I can afford and use it as hard as it's meant to be used, not over the limit.

So back to the issue, it reboots by itself, and goes straight into the BIOS. I navigate to save and exit, and it reboots, but goes back into the BIOS. So I start to navigate, and that's when I realize that it was only showing the three 990 EVO SSDs, but not the PRO, so I realized why it wasn't booting into Windows, since the PRO is the C:\ drive.

I unplug all the USB stuff, which is quite a lot, turn off the power supply and I was going to take a look at the SSD in question, but when I looked up the manual I realized I would have to remove the graphics card to get to it. So I just put back the cover, turned on the power supply, then the PC, and this time it booted into Windows 11 just fine.

I opened the management console to see if there were any errors that could tell me anything, but as usual Windows is useless at giving any useful information.

I opened Samsung Magician and I'm running a long diagnostic on the drive, but at the same time I did a search online for "freefilesync sync caused computer to reboot" (no quotes) and I found lots of results from users saying that FreeFileSync crashed their machines while doing a sync, but I couldn't find one case where their system drive disappeared.

At the same time, while I'm not an IT technician, I've been building and troubleshooting computers for over 20 years, so in my experience it would be really hard for any program to temporarily disable one of the internal drives, unless the program is malware and was coded with that intention.

But this software doesn't seem like malware, not because it says so on the FAQ, but because usually if you do a Google search for [software] malware, if it is malware, you will get tons of results saying so.

But in all my years working with PCs I never come across a situation like this, so I'm a bit puzzled. Has anybody seen this behavior? And I don't mean just the reboot, but the C:\ drive disappearing along with it. I thought perhaps it got too hot and it was a preventive measure, but Samsung Magician shows a graph with the temperature that can be set to 10 minutes, 1 hour or 1 day. So going back to the time it seems to have crashed, 16:55, it shows 54°C, far from the red area of 100°C. In fact, just now while doing the long diagnostic, it was showing 58°C and everything was fine. And the diagnostic just finished with everything OK, so the SSD seems perfectly fine.

[therube]

Let me tell you a story ;-).
.

WD80EAAZ "blue"

- best i can figure, it hits 41 C
& it disconnects - period!

& all you can do at that point, is to turn the "box" on & off again,
until it hits that temp again...

GSmartControl says:

Current Temperature: 41 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature: 41/41 Celsius
Lifetime Min/Max Temperature: 26/41 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count: 0/0

Min/Max recommended Temperature: 0/60 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit: -41/85 Celsius

so theoretically it should be "fine" up to 60 C, & should even "survive" 85 C
41 is a far cry from 60
- unless it happens to be getting extremely hot in the (eSATA) "doc" (doc[s], plural too)
& that hot is not being registered as "Temperature" ?

@ home, relatively hot inside (78 F, i imagine)
@ work, simply "plugged into" the computer, SATA & power cable, drive sitting on the floor
it was running 31 C, for hours on end & did not disconnect...

so...

if i got a "box" to put drives in, & if the "box" got too hot, this WDC would "disconnect"
& if the "box" did not allow for individual drives to be turned on/off, then i would have
to turn off the ENTIRE box, so with that, ALL the drives in the box, so if i have 4 or 5
drives in this "box", then all would need to be shut down...

if drives can be turned off, individually, then that (1) drive can be turned off, then
turned back on, & it should be seen, again - without affecting all other drives in the box

if the "box" us USB-C, it will be SLOW ~30 mbps - on my computer (USB 2.0),
if the "box" is eSATA, then it should be fast ~200 mbps - on my computer
if the "box" is LAN (so a "NAS"), then it should be... not sure ? [no faster then the NIC, so 1 gbps, is that it, or do i have that wrong?]
- i could copy a file from/to NAS & measure speed, & that should give me an idea...

if i got a new computer, & it had USB-C, the drives should be fast
(so again, i'm guessing, ~200 mbps - with spinners)

if the "box" keeps the drives cool, enough, then all is moot
if the "box" has individual "trays", that can be "hot swapped", you can (safely remove) a particular drive, pull it & throw something else in
if the "box" is an "array", then entire box would need to be shut down in order to swap 1 drive (though shouldn't be a frequent occurance ;-))

as it is, my internal drives (in my computer) are ALL running hot (currently) - 45 39 40 44 39
like T: says, currently 44, & its "specs" gives it a range of 5/55 C, with a lifetime history of 9/47

so if i put WD80 internally, theoretically it also would hit this "41" (magic number) & "disconnect"...

and, W: drive, stand-alone, external WDC14 USB connected drive, is hitting 53 C
(along with CrystalDiskInfo playing a tune & showing the temp in RED)
& W: has a 65 C recommended max temp, so that is getting kind of close...


/if/ i got a SSD drive to be used as C: & E: & used other drives as L: & M: &...

as it is: C: 2 TB, E: 90 GB
L: 180 GB, M: 900 GB, Y:3 ---> 6 TB C:
H: 2 (disappears ;-)), I: 4, T: 8,
WDC80 8, XOS 8

so... C:, exclusive of X is using 600 GB + 90 GB for E, so we're at 700 GB,
so a 1 TB SSD drive would be fine...

so... for "data" drives, i have: H: I: T: V: XOS:
so if i excluded H:, that's 4 drives... (among others...)

so... if the "box" was QUIET & ROBUST & FAST & kept the drives cool...


T: is the LOWER "caddy", yellow light
I: is the UPPER "caddy", blue light
(i have a SEAGATE 3TB in a caddy - laying on the desk...)



so...

i can Safely Remove I:, & physically pull the drive out
& physically put V: into it, in its place
BUT... doing that is (seemingly) NOT "hot swap", i.e.,
the computer does not know that a new drive was "installed"
so...
in order to get the drive to be recognized,
i'll have to reboot the computer... ??? !!!

- maybe uwe & the "restart USB" trick
(even though the drive is not USB, but rather a "removable" SATA drive [& "internal", caddy, at that] !)
[& i /thought/ my board was some sort of "hot swap"... ?]
[nope, uwe isn't going to do it, only USB & "hubs" at that & confusing...]

so now i have to reboot... sucks...

got up to 42 C, successfully last night - but temps (in house) was relatively cool (windows open)
- or, being "internal" (caddy) made a difference (compared to USB "doc")?

xfer from T: (hmmm, internal caddy) to (now) V:, also but a different, internal caddy, i'm getting 90 mbps
where with the USB doc & eSATA, i was getting 180 mbps, so only 1/2 the throughput !!!


C:\LIB\ to \\NAS\xxx\LIB 30 GB 13K files, 88 MB/s
bigger files, /recycler/ i'm getting 110 MB/s... (so faster then USB 2.0, slower then eSATA)

WD80EAAZ "blue"

- best i can figure, it hits 41 C
& it disconnects - period!

I built my computer, years & years & years ago.
It has been STABLE.

This WD80EAAZ was (initially) in an external USB adapter plugged into a USB port.
And it was farting, when seemingly it should not have been - when it should not have been.

Guess what, my computer is (now) starting to have issues. Motherboard, SATA ports, USB ports...? Different controllers handing particular SATA/USB ports... Different combinations of drives plugged in to or not in to particular SATA/USB ports...

Depending... drives may or may not appear, or may act - wrongly.

That same WD80EAAZ, once I moved it from external USB, to internal SATA - has been fine - no issues whatsoever (knock knock).

Why? Got me. Computer is on its' way out, but, again for a long time now is back to a stable state.

But if I were to connect a drive to a particular SATA port, I too might find my C: drive to have vanished, or other oddities. Likewise, if I plug a USB device into particular USB port, that too might cause issues.

At present, I've lucked upon combinations that happen to be stable.

[therube]

So, IMO, might FFS have caused your issue - I'm thinking not.
More of a coincidence that it happened shortly after installing FFS.

That C: "disappears" after a BSOD... I've seen that, at times, where a hard reboot may be required (rather then simply "resuming" after popping into the BIOS).

(PS: I typically don't use FFS on above mentioned computer.)