More like preventing a repair on a pc question.

[jknightandkarr]

Ok this isn't really a repair per say, but rather trying to prevent a repair on my desktop.  I've been on computers since I was like 8 yrs old, (late 80's), and I've always been able to figure out what's wrong or what happened to a computer without asking help, but this time, I am totally stumped as to what happened on my desktop....

This last Saturday, since was off work due to stomach bug, decided to change out the CPU fan in my computer from Thermaltake Frio Extreme with 2 120mm fans, which already kept my 125W AMD FX-8350 around 38 Deg C, to an AMD Prism Wraith that came with my new 65W AMD Ryzen 7 3700x, just wanting to compare performance to see which would work better for me.  Well after making initial install n testing, everything A OK!  So turned it off, to turn the fan around so logo faced up since it lights up and side of my case is clear, and upon turning back on, suddenly no OS boot.  Well one SSD later with new Win 10 install and 2 other computers later, and trying some stuff online I looked up, found out that not one but ALL THREE of my hard drives suddenly was unallocated.  ANY idea how this happened and how to prevent it?  I lost photos that meant a lot to me, along with other stuff I needed, so obviously I need to back up stuff weekly...  I've had drives go bad suddenly before, but Windows was able to fix all 3 drives, no problem, and I've NEVER even heard of this before let alone dealt with it, so I find it impossible that all three had a malfunction at the same time.  All I got as to an idea is hacker.  Thoughts??

[fzabkar]

Firstly, just FYI, you must not swap cables between different modular PSUs. The cable pinouts are not standardised, so major damage can result.

Secondly, I have noticed numerous threads where HDDs have suddenly become unallocated. The common factor appears to be Windows 10 and AMD Ryzen platforms.

Gremlin in Win 10 / AMD Ryzen platforms ?
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40843

I suggest you examine the drives with DMDE:

https://dmde.com/

If you can show us DMDE's Partitions window, I may be able to help you to restore the partitions with a few clicks. DMDE should find the missing partition(s) within 1 minute. No need for a full scan.

Something like this ...

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/DMDE/DMDE_Elements-8TB_Partitions.jpg

[Haenk]

I have more than one computer which lose part of their BIOS settings, i.e. drive type (AHCI e.g.) and boot volume. (Not a battery issue btw.) This happens completely randomly, both AMD and Intel. (Though I had one Intel board that showed this symptom like once a week, I eventually dumped that one.)
I also have one Supermicro-RAID (enclosure plus mainboard) which also does that - it is a confirmed BIOS bug when installing Windows onto it. Of course they didn't bother to fix it - who would ever want to run a current Windows server on such a machine...

So as a solution, replace battery, check drive settings and maybe check for BIOS updates.

[jknightandkarr]

Firstly, just FYI, you must not swap cables between different modular PSUs. The cable pinouts are not standardised, so major damage can result.

Secondly, I have noticed numerous threads where HDDs have suddenly become unallocated. The common factor appears to be Windows 10 and AMD Ryzen platforms.

Gremlin in Win 10 / AMD Ryzen platforms ?
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40843

I suggest you examine the drives with DMDE:

https://dmde.com/

If you can show us DMDE's Partitions window, I may be able to help you to restore the partitions with a few clicks. DMDE should find the missing partition(s) within 1 minute. No need for a full scan.

Something like this ...

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/DMDE/DMDE_Elements-8TB_Partitions.jpg

Actually I never touched any cables, other then the ones that are connected to my new can, 1st cable for the fan itself and the 2nd for the built in lighting from AMD and CoolerMaster.  I will try that software and see what happens. Thanks.

I have more than one computer which lose part of their BIOS settings, i.e. drive type (AHCI e.g.) and boot volume. (Not a battery issue btw.) This happens completely randomly, both AMD and Intel. (Though I had one Intel board that showed this symptom like once a week, I eventually dumped that one.)
I also have one Supermicro-RAID (enclosure plus mainboard) which also does that - it is a confirmed BIOS bug when installing Windows onto it. Of course they didn't bother to fix it - who would ever want to run a current Windows server on such a machine...

So as a solution, replace battery, check drive settings and maybe check for BIOS updates.

I know my motherboard has no updates, battery should be fine, not had any bios messages, but can replace just to make sure, can also check drive settings.