Single BIOS beep, and then slave hard drive disappears.

[z-rabbit]

So, sometimes when I am playing a graphics-intensive game, my computer will throw up a single BIOS beep, and then seconds later, I'll hear the "hardware removed" sound that windows makes, at which point my slave hard drive disappears from windows explorer. (it holds all the program files, etc., while the master SSD holds the OS). Anything that was using the hard drive (like all of my games) will stop within seconds.
 
If I reset the computer, it's working again.
 
I've tried swapping SATA ports, updating the firmware, and I'm running out of ideas. The issue doesn't happen %100 percent of the time, so I can't always recreate it to see if the problem is fixed. Also, I'm running windows 7 64-bit.
 
Any ideas?

[Linux711]

at which point my slave hard drive disappears from windows explorer

I've tried swapping SATA ports

I got the impression that it was an IDE drive. Anyway, I think you better start backing up your files, it sounds like this hard drive is failing. Does this hdd have SMART? You could download a utility the uses SMART to analyze the drive.

[z-rabbit]

Well, I don't know much about what smart actually does, but yes, I do have that activated in the BIOS.

Are you sure the hard drive is failing? It never has an issue with anything else, such as moving large files. Only when I'm playing graphics-intensive games.

[Linux711]

No, I am not sure, but I think it is very likely. Try one of those utilities.

It's weird that it only does it during games. It seems unlikely, but maybe a voltage drop due to an inadequate power supply. Do you know the wattage of your PSU?

[z-rabbit]

It's an 850W power supply.

As far as the utilities, I was running HD Tune while I was playing Batman Arkham Asylum, and it threw up an error when I got the beep. It said "Read error! Test aborted"... or something along those lines, anyway.