ASUS G73JH-RBBX05 SSD/HDD issue.

Hello! I am writing this message in the hopes that someone might be able to figure out exactly what the problem is and if it can be fixed without having to send my PC in for an RMA. I have a G73JH-RBBX05, which I purchased as a refurbished device. I have a OCZ Vertex 2 128GB SSD as my primary drive, installed at P0 and a Momentus ST750LX003 at P4. After having played SWTOR for about 6 hours I left the system on for some downloads to finish then I turned it off after a few more hours. When I turned the system back on, I got an error stating that the BOOTMGR is missing, press CTRL ALT DEL to restart. So, I tried resetting my system using a WIN7 install on a USB stick and ran the startup repair utility; however, the system was not able to recognize a valid Windows partition on the computer. I restarted the computer and double checked to see if the SSD/HDD were still showing up under the BIOS and they were, but they simply do not show up under the windows installation.

I have a USB caddy for the HDD which I used to connect the drives to a different computer and the HDD showed up but the system asked to format it and the SDD won't even show up. I am lost as to what I can do at this point to re-install windows on my system, since the WIN7 install GUI does not even recognize any hard drive as being present, but when I look under BIOS, both drives show up.

Any help in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much in advance.

 

Have you tried swapping them in the bays?

If you are getting bootmgr missing but windows doesn't detect a valid installation, you either have a dead or dying disk or SATA controller or somehow your disk partitioning has become corrupted. It can be as simple as needing to mark your system partition as active with diskpart using the windows 7 recovery console. Then try the startup repair option again or use the bootrec command.

If that works, the first time you boot into windows you should immediately do a disk check.

Sometimes a drive won't show up under windows because its partition table has become corrupted, so you would need a disk utility to reinitialize the disk. That would mean losing all of your data though, if it's not already lost.

 

Yes, I connected the HDD at P0 and completely disconnected the SSD. Windows was still unable to recognize the drive. I think the second suggestion might work though, because when I connected the HDD to a different laptop via a USB caddy, it recognized the drive but asked me to format it before I could access it. The SSD however, did not even show up on the other laptop.

This happened right after a Windows automatic update, so I wonder if that has anything to do with this issue. I will try out your suggestions once I get home to see if that helps. Thank you so much for your help!

 

Which one is your boot drive?

 

The SSD is. I just got home and am about to try out the Shift + F10 method from SevenForums. Let's hope it works!

Alright, I tried putting the SSD back in at P0, it does not even show up under the BIOS. I also tried the Shift + F10 method and it still didn't show up under Diskpart. The HDD however, did show up under Diskpart. Any idea what's going on with the SSD?

 

If it's not showing up in the BIOS it won't show up using any software. Switch it back to the other bay and try again with diskpart.

 

Okay, just tried swapping the SSD to a different slot and it still didn't show up under the BIOS or under diskpart after booting up the Windows loader.

On a separate note, is there a way to recover the partition table and files on the other HDD without using a second HDD to mirror the image? Its a 750GB drive and I have about 60 gigs worth of stuff on it. When I connect it to my other laptop, Windows tries to format that drive. I was using it as a storage drive but now it is unreadable.

 

If the SSD doesn't show up in your G73 BIOS or on another computer in an enclosure, it may be dead.

If your HDD partition table has become corrupted, you can try TestDisk - CGSecurity

It's definitely not for beginners, so if you aren't familiar with the process, make sure to read the documentation over a few times. Even after you know your way through testdisk, it's always a gamble. If you have absolutely crucial data on it, you can image the drive before you start prodding at it with testdisk so that you at least have something to revert to, even though it's not in a working state. If you use something like clonezilla, it will make a sparse image of your 60GB of data so that it doesn't use all 750GB of blank space for the image.

 

I was able to get my data from the drive using Easeus, took about 20 hours for it to scan the drive but it worked.
As for the SSD, it's being RMA'd and I am installing my OS on the hybrid drive for now. Once I get the SSD fixed, I'll try and get the stuff moved over to the SSD again. Would you have a suggestion for a backup software? I was looking into Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost.

 

That's good you restored your data. If you're going to image a drive, I don't see any real benefit of paid software over clonezilla unless you are looking for a specific feature it doesn't have.

 

I haven't seen anything i couldn't do with clonezilla, even cloning to a SSD if you align using diskpart which happens to be built into windows.

 

Thank you again for your help and advice! I really appreciate it. Only real feature I'm looking for is the possibility of making universal backups, so that I can transfer the OS I install on the hybrid HDD to the SSD once I get it back.

 

You can use window's backup feature, EaseUS todo backup, Acronis, or another program to make an image of your OS drive. If all you want to do is close, put both drives (source and destination) in the G73 and you can use clonezilla.

 

Firstly, with the G73, you should use both your hybrid drive and SSD together simultaneously. Store all of your personal files, pictures, music, etc. on your hybrid or HDD. Install all programs onto the SSD. Only replaceable items go onto the SSD, like Windows, programs, etc. (e.g. keep program install files backed onto the HDD or an external).

Even better, install Windows7 on your hybrid/HDD, *in addition* to your SSD.

I did this - and if my SSD were to fail right now, it wouldn't matter. All of my work, files, etc. are kept on my HDD in the 2nd bay. I can even start up the laptop and resume work as usual because the HDD still has its original Windows install (just have to change some BIOS settings for boot priority).

But the moral of the story, and has been, is that SSDs are never trustworthy because they can fail suddenly without any notice and upon failure, there is rarely a chance of data recovery.

 

I had the same problem with OCZ Vertez 2 128 Gb, not showing in Windows 7 64 bit.

The OS was on the Momentus X, and the SSD in the other drivebay used for games.

Everytime I booted it didn´t show. I had to remove the SSD, and hopefully it would show, sometimes it did, sometimes not, and after app. 2 months like this, the G73JH died. Yet another RMA, and this time the mobo was the problem, dead.

Since then I don´t use any SSD in the G73JH, I suspect there´s a problem with the Sata´s not being able to handle both an XT Momentus and a SSD.

BTW the SSD works fine, now in my PC.

 

Nice, I have never used Clonezilla before but it sounds like a great program. Thank you for reaffirming that and your input in this matter.

That, I would say is a great idea! Never thought about doing that, the SSD worked great for about 6 months and I never had a problem until last month when it started hanging then completely bricked this week.

I ordered a Synology NAS last night with a 2TB HDD, hopefully this should prevent any future data losses from occurring along with the ability to access my college stuff online.

The issue with the HDD/SSD seems to have gotten worst however. Last night, while trying to install Windows on the hybrid HDD, it would not show up under the installation GUI, even after a format. So, I put connected the drive to my second laptop using a USB connector and did a "Long Generic" test on it to check for errors and to fix them. The test failed halfway, so I will be sending my second HDD as an RMA as well.

This can't just be a coincidence that both drives went bad at the same time, especially right after a windows update. I shut down the system to complete the updates and it wouldn't boot up after that. Any thoughts?

 

Yeah, that's pretty troubling. Because both drives seem to have failed, I would speculate that the issue has something to do with the SATA connection, the motherboard, or SATA controller driver, or any of those combinations. But maybe, more likely, is that you just had bad luck and happened to have 2 faulty drives.