1 TB hard drive recognized by BIOS but not even displaying in windows.

[adrianblue]

I've recently started having this problem with my 3 month old Alienware 15 laptop. It came with a 128GB SSD and a 1TB SATA HD. For some reason, recently, my 1TB hard drive stops being recognized by windows or device manager but it's showing up in the bios. I have Intel rapid storage installed and it's showing that the port itself is empty in spite of it being recognized by the bios. After a few days it starts recognizing it again but then it relapses soon after. The other symptom i noticed was that the boot time when it doesn't get recognized is 10 times longer than when it does. Also while I'm shutting it down, when the hard drive isn't recognized, the screen goes off but the alienFX stays on and so does the laptop unless I force shut it . The hard disk read light stays on too. My windows version is 10 home.
All my OS files are on the SSD hard drive and functions properly but all my important data is on the 1TB hard drive.
Please help guys!
Thanks!

 

[Crixilian]

try check it at Disk Management
does it show another harddrive without drive letter??

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there adrianblue,

Unfortunately, it is possible that the HDD is failing. You need to check whether and how is the drive recognized by Disk Management. In case it is recognized only by BIOS, you may need to try using some data recovery tool for DOS.
Also, it would be really nice if you could attach the drive to a different system in order to be sure whether the problem stems from your system or the HDD itself.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[adrianblue]

Hi there adrianblue,

Unfortunately, it is possible that the HDD is failing. You need to check whether and how is the drive recognized by Disk Management. In case it is recognized only by BIOS, you may need to try using some data recovery tool for DOS.
Also, it would be really nice if you could attach the drive to a different system in order to be sure whether the problem stems from your system or the HDD itself.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

hi, D_Know, umm how exactly should i try data recovery for DOS? Also in the disk management it only shows the C drive. sometimes D shows and sometimes it doesn't. the former is when the D drive is recognized
and the dell service centre personnel are saying the hard drive is fine as it is being recognized by the BIOS.

 

[adrianblue]

try check it at Disk Management
does it show another harddrive without drive letter??

Hi, Crixilian
when the drive gets recognized it shows up on device manager, disk management and in my computer but when it doesnt all the problems show up and it doesn't show anywhere apart from BIOS.

 

[adrianblue]

also i had upgraded to windows 10 recently. this problem had come up just once while i was still on 8.1 and only when i was trying to upgrade to 10. But i don't think it's a software problem.

 

[D_Know_WD]

You can try something like the Ubuntu Live CD approach and see whether the HDD will get properly recognized. In case it is, you need to back up all your data. Check this out: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267999-32-recover-data-mode

In case you manage to do that, you can just test the drive with some of these(some of these have DOS version which you will need to use in case the HDD is recognized only by BIOS): http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Again, attaching the HDD to another system will be a good idea as there may be something with the laptop but not with the HDD itself.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[Kdsmith10000]

I've recently started having this problem with my 3 month old Alienware 15 laptop. It came with a 128GB SSD and a 1TB SATA HD. For some reason, recently, my 1TB hard drive stops being recognized by windows or device manager but it's showing up in the bios. I have Intel rapid storage installed and it's showing that the port itself is empty in spite of it being recognized by the bios. After a few days it starts recognizing it again but then it relapses soon after. The other symptom i noticed was that the boot time when it doesn't get recognized is 10 times longer than when it does. Also while I'm shutting it down, when the hard drive isn't recognized, the screen goes off but the alienFX stays on and so does the laptop unless I force shut it . The hard disk read light stays on too. My windows version is 10 home.
All my OS files are on the SSD hard drive and functions properly but all my important data is on the 1TB hard drive.
Please help guys!
Thanks!

Did you ever get this resolved? I am having the exact same issue with an Alienware 15 I bought new from Dell and received 2 days ago. When it happen the first time I uninstalled an update to the Nvidia Geforce and the HDD came back online, coincidence maybe, but now the issue is back and it is driving me nuts with a 2 day old laptop.