Aspire VX15 Secondary Internal Hard Drive Disappeared, How Do I Fix?

sayitmax

I have an Acer Aspire VX15 with an SSD installed with the computer. About 4 years ago I bought and installed a 2TB SSHD from FireCuda which has been working fine for me up until yesterday. I was playing Call of Duty, which is a pretty heavy game for my computer to handle, and the game froze so I restarted my computer. Upon reboot, my secondary hard drive (SSHD) was no where to be found. I checked file explorer and device manager as well as disk manager. I found nothing except on device manager when I clicked "show hidden items" and it popped up. I had a code 45 and I was doing research on how to fix this. Someone suggested I uninstall so I pressed uninstall device. After that, absolutely nothing. I checked BIOS and there was no trace of it there either. I took apart my laptop a good 3 or 4 times and tried reconnecting the hard drive, cleaning and making sure everything was sound. I am completely out of ideas and confused on why this even happened. Please help thank you.
{Thread was edited to add model name to the title}

William_mk2

@sayitmax

I am really sorry for the inconvenience..   Let us do the basic steps first..

Doing the power drain and bios defaults will really help.  Kindly follow the steps given below:

Turn off the laptop. Disconnect or unplug the charger cable, devices or any other cables connected to your laptop. Close your laptop. Turn it upside down.  On the bottom of the laptop, you can find a  pin hole. It is a tiny hole. You can a find a battery symbol indicator next to the hole. It is like a + and – sign symbol as though somebody is trying to shift the battery out. Insert the pin on to the hole for 30 seconds. Remove the pin. Flip the laptop. Connect the charger cable, turn on the computer.  Only on laptops where the battery is inbuilt you can find the battery reset hole on the back of laptop.

If you don’t find a pin hole on the back of laptop then you might be using removable battery. There is no need to unscrew anything to remove the battery.  Turn off the laptop. Disconnect or unplug the charger cable, devices and any other cables connected to your laptop. Close your laptop. Turn it upside down.  On the bottom of the laptop, please look at the top or bottom depending on the way you look at it. You can find a long door. It is a battery removable door.  Just below that you can find a latch.  If you move the latch you can remove the battery door. Once the battery is removed, flip the laptop. Open the top cover, press and hold the power button for 1 minute. Connect the battery back on the back of computer. Connect the charger cable back and then turn on the computer. 

 

If you don’t see a reset pin hole on the back of laptop or if you are not able to remove the battery (if it is inbuilt) then please unplug all the cables and devices out of laptop.   Hold the power button for 1 minute.  After releasing the button you should wait a while before plugging in power. Just because the button has been pressed doesn’t bleed off all the residual electricity on the motherboard. Wait 15-30 minutes before plugging in power. Then once power is connected wait for a full battery indication before turning the system on. That allows the battery to fully reset it’s internal statistics.

Connect all the cables back and restart the computer.  

While turning on the computer, tap f2. It will go to bios. Press f9 once. It will show load bios defaults with a yes or no popup. Press enter. Popup screen will disappear.  Press f10 once. It will show save changes popup with yes or no. Press enter. Computer will restart and it will load into windows.   

 

It might also be the issue with battery, charger or power outlet.   Try to use the charger in a different room on a different power outlet.  Try to bypass the surge protector and connect it directly to power outlet.    Try to use an alternative charger if possible.    Try to turn on the computer without the charger and check it  ( as long as the battery is not drained out )  

 

It should work fine.. 

Now check whether the hdd is getting detected and showing up on your computer. 

Easwar

Hi @sayitmax,

Usually, it happens when the cable stops working. Therefore, it's advised to replace the cable. After replacing the cable, if the problem still persists, connect the hard drive in another computer to check if the second hard drive is working properly or not.