A SATA connector  is where it connects to the motherboard and the drive. One on each end of the SATA cable. Do you have SATA drives, or IDE drives "linked" as dynamic disks? SATA is Serial ATA, a type of drive, faster than the older IDE type (the ones with the real wide ribbon cables).
Probably you have RAID 0, with SATA drives. RAID 0 is where two drives act as one.

I didn't just mean reformatting those two drives, but reformatting the main C drive (assuming you have Windows on C) and reinstalling Windows from the original disk or OEM restore disk.

Could be loose SATA connections, but considering your other problems I'd say your operating system got hosed somehow. Your other disks might not have gone bad to begin with.

What make and model PC and motherboard? Do you have access to the BIOS?

Sorry, but you confused me. Are you saying your two drives were your ONLY two drives, or only your 3D content drives? Your original post makes it sound as though you still had Windows up and running after the death of the drives in question.