......................zippidy do dah, zippidy day..................

......................zippidy do dah, zippidy day..................

no idea me at  all what means "drop out". (in explorer only, in DISK Manager?? remote shared drop out)

"tell I'm doing this exactly now and I see THAT, be clear here"

Say what told you it dropped out. (some app or what?) "eg: MS word says no such drive exists"

The first to places to look are Explorer,"this PC" and next in DISK MANAGER for sure. gone there too?
What drive , name it and where it is at, and make and model and age and if it passes all smart tests. does it?

no idea me?, what is your backup drive or where it  is,  (inside PC, outside, PC, on a server in the cloud yours or others. (wild guess SATA2 port)

No dell of mine drops out any DRIVE, ever, and some have 5 drives, and more, +external. zero drop out but I have PC that never sleep,  EVER ! I even have the fastest HDD on earth here,  6TB, by Grand SEAGATE.

you do know if you let a drive spin down it's life is IMPACTED. (learn how to hear spin down, ASK) IT IS A SKILL. (HDD have  motor any human can hear once learned how)

name the maker of said drive, makers name and model, some WD Green drives are JUNK in the regard.

turn off HDD after xx minute turned on in CP+ power settings.  set this to never. (a hard drive killer feature)

turn off  indexing on the drive (all that I say here works in google, even this try that)
turn off sharing on said drive (this is just a test )

test the HDD with smart tests, (try this,)std edition. (if shows yellow or red warning the HDD IS BAD.

you must direct the app above to the drive IN QUESTION. (not the DEFAULT)

FORGET OTHER PC'S AND FOCUS ONLY ON THIS PC, ok, thanks.

one other test (one more skill techs know and do) is boot your KIT  , USB Ubuntu v16+ demo media, stick. all techs worth salt have this, a very powerful tool in ANY KIT.

and click TRY ME, , run disktest there, bingo fail? for SMART

and test the drive  for hours to see if the errant HDD DROPS OUT. if not, then now you know it is WINDOWS set up wrong (sleep jive  on), or corrupted or the HDD0 boot drive is bad too or just it.

ALL HDD made FAIL there is no exceptions to this rule  many fail at 5 year mark.(have hard proof)

learn to test them first, never skip testing any old HDD, or you will be stuck in an endless time warp.

going NOWHERE fast.

NO OS on earth runs on bad HW, learn this first.  nor with a Bad RTC coin cell battery in any PC this old.

HW = hardware, OS means operating system,, HDD means hard disk drives .

CP = control panel.

if the drive goes to sleep mode or the port it connects it will HDD spin down. and go off line. for sure bad drivers.

A bad HD can drop out too, that is because the HDD finds bad sectors and then goes to hard processing to find them and slows down.  this is the classic death throws of all old HDD< not fully DEAD..yet and will be SOON.

the cause is simple, the HDD, spare auto repair sectors are DEPLETED, and the HDD is now EOL< end of life.

if you find this confusing find a repair shop , they DO KNOW WHAT TO DO. For SURE.

do not walk in tall cotton.

use the side walk (take the PC to any shop and not try to learn COMPUTERS, in text box.) IMO

Wow. If we could get a translator, we'd be in tall cotton, pickin and grinning.

here is the MACRO answer for you.

NO HDD told no maker , no model , not statement as to what told you , it dropped out.

1. OS corruption or simply set up  wrong. (sleep mode tops this list) and more  lots more.
2. A Bad HDD. (there are 3 states, good, bad or injured = bad)

we can go  days and days checking windows10 for why,  do you? ,   Reload W10?

 windows 10 64bit v1909 (type in run box, winver (enter)bingo, is this PRO windows, if yes run

run box, type presentationsettings.exe   (this ends sleep and for sure ends,  HDD spin down)

YOU DO NOT need any RST driver, at all , The Q65 intel chip set is here, and Intel ended support on series 6 back. (if  using Intels OPTANE RAID?) Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (don;t is the answer)

Not only that but the OPTANE drivers do not work on W10 now, for gen6 chip set, that ended.

Intel ENDED IT, zero support. NOW.

w10 installs and uses ACHI mode, drivers FROM MS,PnP servers, and work all day long. even at install time.

what fails is installing w10 on series 6 chip set attempting intels RAID solutions, Intel ended that, last year.

MS = microsoft, PnP means plug and play, servers means this exact Q65 driver, (sata)<< see those?

if the BIOS is set to ACHI , the PnP driver work out of the gate, even on old 380/790 PC by dell , have 2, I do.

and you do not use RAID, for SURE I've no idea how your PC is setup., nobody does, !@

Do you used Microsoft w10  SW raid, then the drive #2 is independent and does not turn off, if not allowed to sleep.

SW = software.

AND SHOCK SOME lamp WD green drives self shut  down and love to die. endless complaints world wide.

I can those the GREEN DEATH. Go SEAGATE .

NO DRIVE TOLD YET<  why not tell what you have at hand .?

I can demo W10 64bit, v1909 installing on a 790MT,  and no problems at all, period.,. zero problems.!

For sure zero problems with modern GPU card inside. (old cards will fail, vast ,ask)

The  2 SATA ports are set to AHCI, first.  never RAID.    in BIOS screen. AS SEEN HERE done wrong. AHCI is correct RAID never, (2020 year answer)

turn on SMART reporting in BIOS, that why as BIOS POSTS it looks for SMART failures , and let me tell you , you never want to miss those ever. ( the doomed HDD facts never ignored)

And in BIOS SATA ports turned on, all connected ports FOR SURE .

same goes USB ports. all on.

good luck this is all I have to say on why any HDD fails, ( I could talk all day on HDD but there are better videos by Seagate that are SUPER GOOD to watch and learn HDD technology, a.ka. Rust drives and spinners now.)

AHCI works for Sata Operation without needing the Intel F6 RST mass storage driver with all windows 10 versions.

The max IRST driver is 11 for this model.

Versions from earlier including 9.6 and 10.1 are no longer available.

Versions past 11.3 drop support for ICH7

PCI VEN_8086 DEV_2682= "Intel(R) ESB2 SATA RAID Controller"
PCI\VEN_8086 DEV_27C3 = "Intel(R) ICH7R/DH SATA RAID Controller"
PCI\VEN_8086 DEV_27C6 "Intel(R) ICH7MDH SATA RAID Controller"
PCI\VEN_8086 DEV_2822 "Intel(R)   SATA RAID Controller"
PCI\VEN_8086 DEV_282A "Intel(R) Mobile  SATA RAID Controller"

Current version 17 16 15 14 13 12 versions do not work and will not work.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/22194/

Version: 11.7.0.1013

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/how11804/how-to-install-windows-7-on-systems-with-skylake-chipset?lang=en

Intel RST and USB 3.0 drivers for this model are WIN7 versions.

https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER01299327M/1/790-win7-A06-T80W8.CAB

You download the cab file and move to the my documents folder.

Then extract cab contents in the my documents folder using 7zip for all the drivers.

https://www.7-zip.org/download.html

Any yellow !  in device manager can then be updated via the pc instead of the internet.

Newer IRST Versions

For completeness,

1. When I say drop out I mean the drive has gone missing from Windows Explorer. The drive is a Hitachi 1TB HUA721010 on port 1.  It is formatted as a data drive (drive f:) and is only used as a target for my scheduled weekly Windows backup.  It worked flawlessly under Windows 7 for a number of years and I only recently noticed this problem.  Rebooting the system restores the drive to Explorer and allows backup to work.  I have run chkdsk on both drives and all is normal.  I leave the system powered up and the drive has remained online since I opened this thread.

2. Dell has shipped all of it's Optiplex and Latitude systems with Intel RST as long as I can remember.  My current Optiplex 7060 has version 17.5.3.  I just hate to remove anything having to do with the disk drivers for fear of causing a blue screen.  I might try a backup using Ghost (incredibly old but incredibly reliable) before pulling out RST but thought asking the forum might bring out someone who has experienced the same issue.

3.  The version of Intel RST running on this system (the 790) is 12.9.0.  Apparently Microsoft had no issues in upgrading this system to Windows 10, Version 1903.  Other than the drive issue and a minor issue with lock screen, it is working just fine.

ever replace the the RTC Coin cell battery in the last DECADE?

missing in explore but not DISK manager right? if not missing here then make sure the drive has a drive letter there, F: right click drive and set a DRIVE LETTER NOW. or there will be no drive seen in Explorer ever, F:

what does F2 BIOS show , boot PC, hammer F2..  see system configuration click it and click SATA operations.

see SATA setting,  ATA, AHCI,  Disable,  (sure we know it  is not disable but AHCI is correct)

There is no RAID choice on mine, nor yours I BET.

INtel for a fact does not support RAID on your Q65 chip set for a fact, only supports AHCI SATA,,

MY PC is MT is yours?

all PCs with intel south bridge Q65  with RST raid version can run RAID but not with W10 and older than 2015 dell PC. SORRY THAT IS INTEL support ended on Q65 for RAID only.

in your number paragraph #1 you  said

"Rebooting the system restores the drive to Explorer and allows backup to work."  so the drive F: works now?

the south bridge has 2 drivers one for plain old SATA AHCI  and one for RAID (RST) is RAID.

RAID is not supported by Intel now, that means no OEM either, intel is the source, not Dell.

I have  a 790 MT sitting right here,  in the shop,  it runs perfectly in SATA AHCI in fact w10=64b fresh loaded all is perfect here,

it has no RAID version of  the Q65, its not Q65R ok. it is AHCI only south bridge,

Cougar Point, B2 version on my 790MT,  seems to me someone put RST driver on W7 is no good here.

Q65- vendor 8086 intel,  and dev = 1c02 sub 04AD1028
The MS driver on there server for this chip is here.

So if the HDD is  not bad (did you test it with F12 diagnostic?

IF NOT BAD, (OR WEAK = BAD)

then tell if Device manager shows  it next, you did not and that is always first,

HERE IS MY TAKE :

1: if the hdd passes HDD tests in F12 Diagnostics DOES IT? this is first, when HDD act wrong.!!!

2: you upgraded the OS from W7 to 10 and now have the very bad w17 RST driver there and is wrong.

3: or the OS is corrupted, or someone even put the wrong driver on that PC when was W7.

that is it.