Windows keeps wanting to initialise some disks since GPU install

[Nomadski]

I built a new PC (AMD 3700x CPU, Gigabyte Aorus Master X570 motherboard and 32GB of 3200 RAM) some months back with mostly new components but with a few HDDs and SSDs from my older build (though some HDDs were quite new anyway) and had no bother with them for a couple of months.

I finally managed to get a new Gigabyte Aorus Master 3080 GPU about 3 weeks ago but after installation I noticed some drives were missing from My Computer. In Manage I was prompted I had to initialise 4 of the 7 drives I have installed. After doing so and formatting them all was well.

Then a few days later after quite a few reboots the same HDDs and SSDs were gone again, and looking at Manage again I was again prompted to initialise (and then format) those same disks.

After doing so I checked the health status on each drive but Windows cannot see any problems with them.

I thought maybe the SATA cables were bad, so I replaced all of them and after initialising again all seemed well. Today I booted and they were there, but when I went into Manage I saw a cross near the same four drives, and looking back at My Computer they were all gone again. Reopening Manage I was again prompted to initialise the disks.

I'm basically stumped now. I thought maybe the extra power draw from the PSU may be an issue, but its a Corsair Gold certified 860W modular PSU (860i) so I would have thought I had plenty of juice to cover everything?

FTR these are the drive details I have installed with the drive number they have in Windows.

Good Drives (never need initialising)

0. 1TB Sabrent NVME m.2

2TB Sabrent NVME m.2

4TB Seagate ST4000DM004 HDD

Bad Drives (always the ones that need initialising)

6. Samsung 850 Pro SSD
2. Samsung 840 EVO SSD
3. Seagate 2TB ST2000DM001 HDD
4. Seagate 3TB ST3000DM001 HDD

For obvious reasons I've avoided putting anything on these 4 drives recently, but I did lose a lot of stuff from the first time I formatted, but that boat has sailed I know.

Also, as per the manual, the motherboard does not disable any SATA ports if only M.2 slots A and B are used, only if C is used. The NVME drives populate A and B, C is empty.

I'm using Windows build 19042.685.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Just some questions / observations: 

Did you perform a fresh installation of windows to the sabrent 1TB m.2.  Can I assume this is your boot drive?  How is this disk formatted?  MBR, GPT?

How are the other disks formatted?  Do they include multiple partitions, etc?

You are running a windows 10 insider preview build.  This is not recommended for a production system.  Results might vary.

BIOS rev is?  ...  F22 or lower might be the best option for your 3700X

What operate mode for the storage controller are you using?   

From an installation standpoint your configuration looks correct, but you have quite a mix of hard drive technologies.

Its always best to use items on the QVL for your system.  This includes memory, storage, etc. 

One thing I never recommend is initializing a disk that is formatted and contains data that I might have moved from another system.  As you indicated, that ship has sailed.

Next steps,  Answer the questions above.

Then remove the disks which continue to drop off or become unformatted.  Verify your BIOS settings and confirm the system is stable. 24 hrs. 

Add a disk, just 1.  Use diskpart to select, clean and format.  I prefer GPT, but you can use MBR if you wish.  Run for 24 hrs, performing normal restarts. 

Continue this process adding 1 new disk each time.  This will require time and some patience.

Note,  other options might be indicated should your answers bring other unknown information to light.

[Nomadski]

Thanks for your reply, i have posted on Reddit and other tech sites and yours is the first response I've had.

Did you perform a fresh installation of windows to the sabrent 1TB m.2.  Can I assume this is your boot drive?  How is this disk formatted?  MBR, GPT?

How are the other disks formatted?  Do they include multiple partitions, etc?

FYI the problems I have encountered only began once I plugged in the new 3080 GPU a few weeks ago. I had been running this same build with a 1070 for about 3 months without an instance of this happening?

I did perform a fresh install, although I had a few issues with the installation (think I set it as MBR initially and had issues with partitions on the drive, I was helped by someone on Win10 forums).

This is my boot drive, it is formatted GPT and has 3 partitions - 100mb EFI System / 930.90GB Boot, Page File etc / 513mb Recovery Partition.

All my other drives are formatted GPT and NTFS with only a single volume on each one.

You are running a windows 10 insider preview build.  This is not recommended for a production system.  Results might vary.

I was not aware I was running an Insider Build? I got W10 free when it first launched back in the day, and just transferred the licence across so not sure how I've ended up on an Insider Build??!

BIOS rev is?  ...  F22 or lower might be the best option for your 3700X

Around September when I did the build, I updated to what was the latest (R2?). Then when I started getting these issues early January I upgraded to what was latest available thru the Gigabyte @BIOS app which is R30.  This issue began on R2 and has carried on thru R30.

What operate mode for the storage controller are you using?   

I'm not sure what you mean by this - sorry my tech knowledge is limited to plugging things in and crossing my fingers.

EDIT: I looked in BIOS and all i could see was a reference to Sata mode which was AHCI?

From an installation standpoint your configuration looks correct, but you have quite a mix of hard drive technologies.

Its always best to use items on the QVL for your system.  This includes memory, storage, etc.

Some are drives from the very old build I had (SSDs) and a couple are more reason large drives i wanted for video capturing and games etc.

The drives are all either Seagate Barracudas or Samsung EVOs which are well established drives.

One thing I never recommend is initializing a disk that is formatted and contains data that I might have moved from another system.  As you indicated, that ship has sailed.

Yup, sadface.

Next steps,  Answer the questions above.

Then remove the disks which continue to drop off or become unformatted.  Verify your BIOS settings and confirm the system is stable. 24 hrs. 

Add a disk, just 1.  Use diskpart to select, clean and format.  I prefer GPT, but you can use MBR if you wish.  Run for 24 hrs, performing normal restarts. 

Continue this process adding 1 new disk each time.  This will require time and some patience.

Note,  other options might be indicated should your answers bring other unknown information to light.

I'll try that. I'm not sure what settings to check in the BIOS though with this regard - one other thing I have noticed since the GPU was installed is that I used to see the Aorus eagle symbol on the black screen (POST screen) prior to the windows screen with my 1070. With the 3080 plugged in my monitor doesn't detect a signal until I get to the Windows login screen.

If I stab the delete button nothing loads and I get an A6 error message on the mobo light which apparently relates to SCSI device, whatever that is.

Again, only happened once I plugged in new GPU.

EDIT: Have just noticed after posting the message, when I restarted PC, I had my second monitor switched on for the first time in ages and the POST Aorus logo appeared on monitor 2 before Windows appeared on Monitor 1 (my main monitor). The old 1070 used to just output both to the main window.

When I hit delete at the logo, I went into BIOS and saw the A6 code on the mobo light up so I guess that just comes up when you go into BIOS?

Ok, I'll do what you suggested and remove all the drives that are affected and run it for a few days without them plugged in.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

[Nomadski]

Well I disconnected all 4 of the drives and kept just one, (the 2TB HDD) connected.  For about 4 days all seemed fine, was going to connect a second drive later tomorrow but after uninstalling RGB Fusion 2.0 and restarting the PC, RGB Fusion auto installed itself back and when I checked the 2TB HDD had gone.

Currently Gigabyte eSupport is telling me to try downgrading mobo in bios to PCIe 3.0...

[shadowsports]

Gigabyte eSupport recommended you downgrade your BIOS.  Note I suggested this in my first post.

Gigabyte Utilities:
App Center can auto-update installed applications.  You can disable this in the app.  I recommend this as auto-update can sometimes cause it was working when I shut it off and not after a restart.

One disk:
There is no need to continue adding disks until you have a 100% stable system.  Data can always be restored.  If you need to reinstall windows, it only takes 15 min to an m.2.

[Nomadski]

Gigabyte eSupport recommended you downgrade your BIOS.  Note I suggested this in my first post.

No, they suggested downgrading the mobo to PCIe 3 (from PCIe 4) not the BIOS.

In fact they have (twice now) suggested upgrading BIOS to a later one (first was R32, now R33a).

Gigabyte Utilities:
App Center can auto-update installed applications.  You can disable this in the app.  I recommend this as auto-update can sometimes cause it was working when I shut it off and not after a restart.

Didn't know that, thanks I'll take a look.

One disk:
There is no need to continue adding disks until you have a 100% stable system.  Data can always be restored.  If you need to reinstall windows, it only takes 15 min to an m.2.

Exactly my thoughts, so I did reinstall windows. Currently running the 2 NVMes, and both the steady HDD and the problematic one I had connected.

Running a basic setup with out the Gigabyte software, as I have a feeling my problems are related to either the App center, RGB Fusion 2 or SIV.

I'm not going to install any of them for a few weeks and see. Then I will install and see if problem reoccurs.

My current Windows build is 19042.746 which I'm hoping is not an insider build (am extremely confused how I got onto an Insider build last time as my hotmail account linked to windows is not on the program, and my work email address wont load on the Insider login site).

[Nomadski]

Well I've found the culprit.

I did a full clean install. Ran pretty basic level of applications, but did install a few gaming platforms and games. Ran lovely and smooth (except for my fans which blow crazy high revs) for 5 days now performing multiple reboots, playing games and generally using the PC.

HDD always appeared on My Computer as it had done with previous GPU.

Then I installed what I suspected to be the cause - RGB Fusion 2.0. I thought it had to be this or SIV as they were the only things installed with the new GPU that weren't there with the previous GPU.

First reboot, HDD gone, needs initialising.

Cheers Gigabyte, your software has caused me to lose photos, videos and weeks of my life I'll never get back.

[shadowsports]

Hi,
That's a bummer.  I just purchased another disk (m.2).  I'll have to add it to one of my systems and see what the behavior is.

Difference however, I am intel based.  As of this reply vB21.0113.1 is the latest version of RGB Fusion available.  If you aren't running this build, it might be worth trying it.

https://www.gigabyte.com/MicroSite/512/download.html 

Also, Gigabyte recently released some updated BIOS' for the 3080 which specifically addresses fan curves for GPU.  You might want to check and see if this is applicable for your card. 

[Nomadski]

Hi,
That's a bummer.  I just purchased another disk (m.2).  I'll have to add it to one of my systems and see what the behavior is.

Difference however, I am intel based.  As of this reply vB21.0113.1 is the latest version of RGB Fusion available.  If you aren't running this build, it might be worth trying it.

https://www.gigabyte.com/MicroSite/512/download.html 

Also, Gigabyte recently released some updated BIOS' for the 3080 which specifically addresses fan curves for GPU.  You might want to check and see if this is applicable for your card.

Yes, vB21.0113.1 was the build of RGB Fusion I used. I downloaded it straight from the motherboards support page on Gigabytes website. It seems there is an issue here that Gigabyte really should look at. I am still chatting with esupport in the hope they can try a very similar config to my setup and find the problem in the software.

All of the times the drives have gone, there was the sound of the HDD searching (currently still only the 2TB Seagate HDD connected of the four affected drives). Every time the drive or drives have gone I've heard that sound shortly after windows boots. I've not heard that sound in 5 days with it smooth running.  When I installed App Center then RGB Fusion and did the reboot, there was the sound again while the RGB Fusion loading pop up appeared and boom, HDD gone.

I've uninstalled RGB Fusion, and am running the PC with just the App Center installed as I installed that during the same boot as RGB Fusion. The App Center is now empty of apps, but at least I can be 100% it's RGB Fusion causing the issue and not App Center. I'm 99.9% sure it's RGB Fusion because of the timing of that sound.

I'd love to know what RGB Fusion is doing to affect 4 of 5 SATA devices. It's not like they disappear in BIOS either, they are still visible there.

For now I'm just going to have to put up with a useless LCD screen on the GPU, and lighting effects that do nothing for me.

I'll look into that 3080 BIOS update - although I'm already on R33a. It is a regular BIOS update I presume your referring to?

[Nomadski]

I see the BIOS update on the GPU page, I'll give it a go.

It's confusing that the motherboard support page has RGB Fusion, but on the GPU page the support page has RGB Fusion 2.0.

I tried both when I had all four affected drives connected, had issues with either installed, and I struggled to tell any difference between either version.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,
This is what I was referring to.

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Graphics-Card/GV-N3080AORUS-M-10GD-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

[Nomadski]

Greetings,
This is what I was referring to.

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Graphics-Card/GV-N3080AORUS-M-10GD-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

Thanks, I've updated the BIOS for both the OC mode and Silent mode.

I notice there is also a firmware update on the same page? I always considered BIOS to be the firmware?!

Should I have done that update before the BIOS one?

[dmdilks]

Cheers Gigabyte, your software has caused me to lose photos, videos and weeks of my life I'll never get back.

They are recovering software that you can use to get everything back. Even if you formatted or deleted the Partition.

This one is really nice and easy to use too: "EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard"

https://www.easeus.com/ad/data-recovery-wizard.htm?gclid=CjwKCAiA9vOABhBfEiwATCi7GAx3GujnRXx5_fbeQivG1ShN5wziJ9akiJX2jKjyqGHIwkBlVqwErhoCZp0QAvD_BwE

[shadowsports]

Greetings,
This is what I was referring to.

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Graphics-Card/GV-N3080AORUS-M-10GD-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

Thanks, I've updated the BIOS for both the OC mode and Silent mode.

I notice there is also a firmware update on the same page? I always considered BIOS to be the firmware?!

Should I have done that update before the BIOS one?

Based in what I'm seeing, F2 should include the F1.1 firmware enhancement.  What I would hope for is a smooth fan curve.  I don't have any Gigabyte cards for comparison.  I use EVGA cards, and currently only own a 2070 and 2080.  I game on an xbox so having the latest card isn't as important to me any more as it was when I played everything on PC's Command and Conquer, FarCry, Quake, etc.  I mostly do photo and video now. 

I did read some reddit posts from others who mentioned the fan curve issue.  PSU's and GPU's are becoming so sophisticated now.  Zero RPM fan mode if demands and heat are below thresholds.  My fans barely even turn on except when I am doing large batch file processing like RAW to JPG or video rendering.  Gigabyte cards are cool because they have the center fan that spins backwards creating a different vortex.

Any way I hope you get resolution to your disk initialization issue.  I have one extra old school pattered disk in each of my Z390 systems, and a RAID1 array in my Z370 that I use for back ups.  Boot drives are m.2.  RGB Fusion 2.0 is installed on all machines, but hasn't caused any data loss with the older SATA drives.

[Nomadski]

My fans across the board are just loud, permanently ramping up as I don't currently have SIV installed to control the curves.

My last build in 2013 was gloriously quiet, but even with BeQuiet fans in the case, an AIO and this 3080 its the loudest PC ive ever owned.

Just really don't want to install any more Gigabyte software, would rather keep my drives.

Think I will wait until the GPU I really wanted (Asus 3080 ROG OC) becomes available and then sell this Gigabyte card.

I paid for impatience.