Disappearing Files on 3rd Internal SSD when accessed from 2 different Windows installs - Help!

If some of the M.2 NVMe SSDs don't have a cache - is it better than I buy one with cache for the purpose I'll be using it for then?

E.g. "WD SN750 500GB High-Performance NVMe Internal Gaming SSD, Black"
- Cache memory (size): 500
 
The article I was reading said that some SSD's don't have cache and use other means to improve performance. I would buy one with cache if the best performance was what you are after. As far as a the write cache command, it wont give you any acknowledgement that it has worked. If after enabling the write cache and it doesn't work again, run the command and see if that helps.
 
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The article I was reading said that some SSD's don't have cache and use other means to improve performance. I would buy one with cache if the best performance was what you are after. As far as a the write cache commend, it wont give you any acknowledgement that it has worked. If after enabling the write cache and it doesn't work again, run the command and see if that helps.

Tried running it again and still did same thing on command screen.

So I ordered a new drive, a WD Blue SN550 500GB from Amazon, instead they sent me a 1TB version but I'm not going to complain... :smashin:

Installed and running with it in now, write cache enabled (default setting) so I'll see if anything similar occurs, hopefully it's all sorted and was just the other drive.

Thanks again Bolosun and ChuckMountain :thumbsup:
 
Update - so having the exact same problem again with the new/different drive, so obviously the previous drive wasn't corrupted...

I'm now going to reformat the drive and this time disable the default write caching option to see if it occurs after that or not

Thought I'd post in case anyone else also experiences this issue
 
still try sfc /scannow, and then DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

I did this too and even after it, problem still occurs. It's like some sort of association that windows makes on the operating system causes the problem when I access it from the other windows system.

I've searched quite a bit online to see if anyone else has experienced the issue but it seems like that I'm trying to do is rare and no one else does it (access internal drive from 2 different operating systems)

I'm now wondering if it's maybe worth looking at some sort of mounting/unmounting method to make windows see it as a plugged in storage drive.. because I don't really know why the files keep disappearing randomly
 
So when you boot from 1 drive you can still see the other boot drives?
Nope, I disable the other boot drive at bios so the bios will see either boot drive 1 + shared disk OR boot drive 2 + shared disk

On the shared drive, I've now disabled file indexing to see if that had something to do with it and also disabled the recycle bin, will see if that makes any difference
 
Problem still occurring :(

Think I'll give up on this and probably use a USB stick instead as files and folders keep disappearing still, no matter what I try...

Final thing I think I will try/test is see if there's a way to disable windows scanning the drives for errors, I have a feeling it could be something to do with that because when I add files on Windows install 1, and then load up Windows install 2, it will see new files on the drive that have just come from nowhere and may think this is a fault and tries to do a repair (because I keep getting notifications from windows saying "Scan drive for errors" and then "Restart to repair drive errors"...
 
Okay so I tried to disable windows scanning the drive for errors form command prompt using the command: "chkntfs /x D:"

I did that and then reformatted the drive again and I lost files again. However, when I booted back into windows after restarting, windows gave the same notification "restart to repair drive errors" - this was what I thought I'd disabled but clearly it didnt work. See notifications below:

notification.png


restart to repair drive errors.png


So I then read on a website that I can use the command "fsutil dirty query D:" to check if windows has marked the drive as dirty or not.
I first tested the command on C drive and it said C is NOT dirty, then when I ran it on D drive (the drive I keep losing files on), it said D is Dirty!! See image below.
So my question is, why/how does windows determine that a drive is Dirty? and what triggers the test to be done?

D is dirty.png
 
You could have a hardware fault with your laptop. As you have changed the drive and tried various fixes, it is the only thing left.
 
Windows is not trying to defrag the drive frequently? There is a bug that was fixed in the May 2020 update.
So I just checked and defrag settings for the drive, turned off Optimise Drives setting for the shared D drive.

Even through I've turned off chkdsk for D drive, when I powered on the laptop recently, it scanned D drive before booting into windows.

So I start looking at Event Viewer to see if I can find anything and scan seems to be sourced from Wininit (event ID 1001) which then seems to trigger Chkdsk to run even though I disabled Chkdsk by going into regedit, path:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
BootExecute > Value data set to: autocheck autochk /k:D *
(the /k:D tells it to exclude D drive)

EDIT: The green smiley face is supposed to be characters colon and uppercase D (it keeps autochanging to the green smiley, not sure how to disable it)

Event Viewer Log:

Checking file system on D:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Local Disk.


Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
110592 file records processed.
File verification completed.
Phase duration (File record verification): 495.59 milliseconds.
1 large file records processed.
Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.
0 bad file records processed.
Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 1.45 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
3 reparse records processed.
170104 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
Phase duration (Index verification): 6.63 seconds.
0 unindexed files scanned.
Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 34.94 milliseconds.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 2.65 milliseconds.
3 reparse records processed.
Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 3.21 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Cleaning up 1 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 1.65 milliseconds.
29757 data files processed.
Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 1.44 milliseconds.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
70450496 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Phase duration (USN journal verification): 618.24 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

976744447 KB total disk space.
93618560 KB in 80721 files.
24664 KB in 29758 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
275479 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
882825744 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
244186111 total allocation units on disk.
220706436 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 7.81 seconds (7816 ms).

Internal Info:
00 b0 01 00 9b af 01 00 97 af 01 00 00 00 00 00 ................
03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
 
Windows is not trying to defrag the drive frequently? There is a bug that was fixed in the May 2020 update.

UPDATE - so this problem maybe fixed now!

Since my last post on here (Oct 24, 2020), after I disabled the defrag setting following your suggestion Bolosun and disabling chkdsk from running, I've not had this issue occur since. Fingers crossed that it doesn't happen again!

Once again, thank you for the help Bolosun!!! :)

Settings applied to fix the issue (applied from both windows operating systems that "see" the shared 'D' drive):

Disable Drive Optimization (Defragment) Setting for the Shared Drive from both Windows Operati...png

Disable Chkdsk (Check Disk) from Registry Editor for the Shared Drive from both Windows Operat...png
 
I have been using O&O defrag for years, never had a problem with it - even with my SSD's.
 
I have been using O&O defrag for years, never had a problem with it - even with my SSD's.

I don't think defrag is the problem, as I also have SSDs in my laptop that are defragged and never had an issue, I think the problem is caused by one Windows system seeing the shared drive and (maybe defrag) then the next time it sees the drive again, data has changed on it (because I've written to it from the other Windows system) and it thinks this is now corrupt, which is why it then runs Chkdsk to try and detect/restore errors.

Whether it's due to defrag running, I don't know for sure yet but it's the combination of writing data from another windows system and then loading up the previous windows system that makes it think there's a problem, once it thinks there's a problem with the disk, it writes a 1/TRUE to the "dirty" bit which then tells windows to run chkdsk
 
Remember to check the settings after any Microsoft Windows updates. They have a habit of resetting some settings to default.
 

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