Win 7 loses hard drive on wakeup

[Don S]

I know this has been discussed here, but I couldn't find the posts - so I have this problem with a new install of Windows 7 Pro 32 bit. In previous posts there was a link to a hotfix (KB077178), which apparently helped everyone who had the problem - and there were lots of people. I downloaded the hotfix and tried to install it but got a message "this update is not applicable to your computer". Great. So is this hotfix only for 64 bit Win 7? Or is there something else at work here? My lost drive is a WD Sata 1 TB. The 500 GB drive has no problem, it's only the big one, which goes along with the explanation about the big ones taking more than 10 seconds to spin up. I can always get the drive back by rebooting, and after short rests, but once it goes to sleep, it doesn't find it on wakeup. Anyone know if this fix is only for 64 bit? If so, I guess I'm forced to get the 64 bit version or set my drives to never sleep. Suggestions? Thanks for a great site!

[KenB]

Hi Don and welcome to ExTS

 

I Googled that KB077178 and got absolutely nothing ??

 

Try this as a "work around"

Take a look in the BIOS and AHCI should be enabled.

If you change this to IDE ....do you still get the same problem ?

[Don S]

My bad - I got the hotfix number wrong.

 

Ken - thanks for the response. So sorry, the hotfix number is KB977178 - no wonder you got nothing! I've been trying all sorts of BIOS setting changes and I'm getting various results - nothing consistent,though. Something I did seems to have caused the system to not go to sleep, regardless of the Windows settings, so actually I don't even know if I'm still having the lost drive problem. It's there now, but of course, the system hasn't gone to sleep. I have to believe it's in the IDE/SATA mode switching and ACHI is part of that, but I haven't found the exact issue yet. The system was running in IDE mode, and when I changed it to ACHI, it seemed to cause all sorts of problems with boot order, drives seemingly moving around the various controllers, etc., so now my head is really spinning. I think maybe I have more than one issue here. It's an old Motherboard and CPU trying to run Windows 7 after a clean install, and I think there are some driver and compatibility issues. So I'm trying to work through them one by one. I'll post again if I can nail something down. I have a newer motherboard and CPU on order, so once those get here, I'll put em together and try again. Hopefully many of the problems will be fixed with a MOBO and CPU pairing that actually support Windows 7. Just trying to save a buck and use my older stuff, but I'm finding out they're not playing nice with Win 7. It's a fun challenge though. Thanks again!

[KenB]

Hi

 

the hotfix number is KB977178

That makes a difference :)

 

The Hot Fix is there for 32 bit - you just need to reveal it.

Click on "Show hotfixes for all platforms and languages "

You then want the x86 which is the 32 bit version.

 

click here