I have the same problem and none of the suggestions worked for me. The sata harddrive that I have has 250 gb and was working fine until suddenly it crashed and then windows could not load. I tried to reinstall windows but the hard drive was not detected. I used another hard drive and connected the malfunctioned hdd via e-sata cable, it is listed in bios, disc management, but not in my computer. it is a seagate 250 gb hdd, but in disc management the capacity is 55 mb! the drive does not have any name, and it is not initialized and when I try to initialize it, it says "the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error". I tried tons of recovery softwares and still nothing. I have very important data on this drive which I really need... Any suggestions?
- Status
My problem was I can see it in BIOS, I load windows, does not show up in disk management, does not show up in device manager too, I tried rescanning in device manager, there it showed up in device manager. then rescan in disk management, that did it for me.
I'm running XP sp3, ASUS P5GC-MX mobo running AMI BIOS, the HDD I added was a Seagate Barracuda 80gb SATA, 7200.9
I'm running XP sp3, ASUS P5GC-MX mobo running AMI BIOS, the HDD I added was a Seagate Barracuda 80gb SATA, 7200.9
Deca, let's see if we can help. You said, "I also have a 1 tera byte Hitachi hard drive that is seen on the initial boot up screen, but not in windows at all. "
We'll need a little more info. I'm going to assume it is a SATA II HDD unit. What about the rest of your system?
1. What is the mobo - maker and model? Do you know whether its SATA controller system is the original SATA 1.5 Gb/s, or the newer SATA II at 3.0 Gb/s?
2. What HDD's and optical drives do you have installed already? What types (IDE or SATA or SATA II) of HDD, connected to which ports on your mobo? What about your optical drive(s) - how is it / are they connected?
3. What OS do you have installed where - Windows I presume, but which one, and with what Service Pack installed? On which drive?
4. Does the new drive have ANYTHING on it you want to preserve, or is it just empty?
5. Do you plan to move your OS to the new int and make it your boot drive? Or, is this unit to be for data only?
6. What size Partitions / Volumes do you want? Do you want to use it as one huge drive, or break it up into two or more Partitions?
This will help us customize the advice.
We'll need a little more info. I'm going to assume it is a SATA II HDD unit. What about the rest of your system?
1. What is the mobo - maker and model? Do you know whether its SATA controller system is the original SATA 1.5 Gb/s, or the newer SATA II at 3.0 Gb/s?
2. What HDD's and optical drives do you have installed already? What types (IDE or SATA or SATA II) of HDD, connected to which ports on your mobo? What about your optical drive(s) - how is it / are they connected?
3. What OS do you have installed where - Windows I presume, but which one, and with what Service Pack installed? On which drive?
4. Does the new drive have ANYTHING on it you want to preserve, or is it just empty?
5. Do you plan to move your OS to the new int and make it your boot drive? Or, is this unit to be for data only?
6. What size Partitions / Volumes do you want? Do you want to use it as one huge drive, or break it up into two or more Partitions?
This will help us customize the advice.
1. What is the mobo - SATA II
2. What HDD's and optical drives do you have installed already? All Sata
3. What OS do you have installed where - Windows XP pro Sp 2
4. Does the new drive have ANYTHING on it you want to preserve, or is it just empty? It can be cleared!
5. Do you plan to move your OS to the new int and make it your boot drive? Or, is this unit to be for data only?- Data only
6. What size Partitions / Volumes do you want? Use it as one huge drive.
2. What HDD's and optical drives do you have installed already? All Sata
3. What OS do you have installed where - Windows XP pro Sp 2
4. Does the new drive have ANYTHING on it you want to preserve, or is it just empty? It can be cleared!
5. Do you plan to move your OS to the new int and make it your boot drive? Or, is this unit to be for data only?- Data only
6. What size Partitions / Volumes do you want? Use it as one huge drive.
OK, deca, thanks for the info.
1. Win XP does not have built-in drivers for "native Sata" or AHCI devices. So you usually have two options. One is a common one in most current mobos. Within BIOS Setup right close to where you Enable your SATA ports, there is a place to set the port's mode, and choices usually include: IDE (or PATA) Emulation, native SATA, AHCI, or RAID. You do NOT want RAID, unless your mobo is one of those that treats everything that is not plain IDE as some sub-version of RAID. IDE (or PATA) Emulation has the mobo make the actual SATA port appear to Windows to be just a plain IDE drive that it already understands, and it all works with no problems. Well, almost - to do this, you are deprived of using a few advanced features of a real SATA device. However, if you want those features, you can have them. This simply means two things: you set your mode to AHCI (preferred) or native SATA, AND you then must install in Windows the driver necessary to use that device (AHCI or SATA, as chosen). Installing a driver in Windows is a standard operation, like any other device. Where to get the driver? It may already be on a CD that came with your mobo. In fact, may of those CD's have a utility you run to select and install particular drivers, depending on your needs. Alternatively (may even be a better choice), go to the website of your mobo maker to find and download the latest updated correct driver - that is, the one BOTH for your mobo and for your OS (Win XP Pro SP2), then install it. Once that is set up, your new drive will be usable by Windows as a data drive because it will load that driver from the C: boot drive when it starts up. It just cannot be used for booting, which you do not plan to do.
2. "Usable by Windows", etc. - well, not quite yet. The BIOS will see it and, with the matching SATA port mode set and driver installed (needed if not IDE Emulation), Windows will be aware it exists as a piece of hardware, BUT it still will not show up in My Computer. You need to use Windows Disk Management to do two jobs: Partition and Format that new unit. Click on Start at bottom left and in the menu RIGHT-click on My Computer and choose "Manage" from the mini-menu to open a new window. On its left click to expand "Storage" if necessary and choose "Disk Management". This will open two panes on the right, each of them scrolling to reveal their whole contents. The upper one shows you only the devices Windows already knows how to use. The lower one also shows you the hardware Windows can see, including some devices Windows does not yet understand. Each device is represented by a large horizontal block. On its left end is a smaller label block with things like "DISK_0", a size, and a few other bits of info. To the right will be one or more large sub-blocks representing Partitions already defined. Each of these will have a letter name like your C: drive, its size and File System, and a bit more. If there is some space not yet assigned to a Partition, it will be a block further to the right called "Unallocated Space". The main block representing your optical drive will not have all this stuff because you cannot define a Partition on such a device. Now, your new disk should be here with no letter name and no info beyond its basic label on the left end. RIGHT-click on its Unallocated Space and, from the menu, choose to Create a Partition on the drive. You'll have a choice of how big it should be and most likely want to use all the drive in one volume. (You can use only part of the space. If you do, when you are finished come back here and find the remainder shown as "Unallocated Space". You can create a second Partition or more in it if you want.) For this first Partition, make it the Primary or Active Partition, and NOT bootable because this drive is for data only - you already have a boot drive. When all the choices are made, go ahead with the Partition operation.
When that is done, come back to this new Partition and RIGHT-click again and choose to Format it. Choose the NTFS File System option. A Quick Format will do the job in 5 to 15 minutes. A Full Format will do a Quick Format, then go though every sector of the drive and test it, marking off any faulty ones (very rare) so they won't be used. Full Format takes many hours!
When you are done, exit out of Disk Management, reboot and your newly prepared hard drive should show up in My Computer as an empty unit ready for use.
1. Win XP does not have built-in drivers for "native Sata" or AHCI devices. So you usually have two options. One is a common one in most current mobos. Within BIOS Setup right close to where you Enable your SATA ports, there is a place to set the port's mode, and choices usually include: IDE (or PATA) Emulation, native SATA, AHCI, or RAID. You do NOT want RAID, unless your mobo is one of those that treats everything that is not plain IDE as some sub-version of RAID. IDE (or PATA) Emulation has the mobo make the actual SATA port appear to Windows to be just a plain IDE drive that it already understands, and it all works with no problems. Well, almost - to do this, you are deprived of using a few advanced features of a real SATA device. However, if you want those features, you can have them. This simply means two things: you set your mode to AHCI (preferred) or native SATA, AND you then must install in Windows the driver necessary to use that device (AHCI or SATA, as chosen). Installing a driver in Windows is a standard operation, like any other device. Where to get the driver? It may already be on a CD that came with your mobo. In fact, may of those CD's have a utility you run to select and install particular drivers, depending on your needs. Alternatively (may even be a better choice), go to the website of your mobo maker to find and download the latest updated correct driver - that is, the one BOTH for your mobo and for your OS (Win XP Pro SP2), then install it. Once that is set up, your new drive will be usable by Windows as a data drive because it will load that driver from the C: boot drive when it starts up. It just cannot be used for booting, which you do not plan to do.
2. "Usable by Windows", etc. - well, not quite yet. The BIOS will see it and, with the matching SATA port mode set and driver installed (needed if not IDE Emulation), Windows will be aware it exists as a piece of hardware, BUT it still will not show up in My Computer. You need to use Windows Disk Management to do two jobs: Partition and Format that new unit. Click on Start at bottom left and in the menu RIGHT-click on My Computer and choose "Manage" from the mini-menu to open a new window. On its left click to expand "Storage" if necessary and choose "Disk Management". This will open two panes on the right, each of them scrolling to reveal their whole contents. The upper one shows you only the devices Windows already knows how to use. The lower one also shows you the hardware Windows can see, including some devices Windows does not yet understand. Each device is represented by a large horizontal block. On its left end is a smaller label block with things like "DISK_0", a size, and a few other bits of info. To the right will be one or more large sub-blocks representing Partitions already defined. Each of these will have a letter name like your C: drive, its size and File System, and a bit more. If there is some space not yet assigned to a Partition, it will be a block further to the right called "Unallocated Space". The main block representing your optical drive will not have all this stuff because you cannot define a Partition on such a device. Now, your new disk should be here with no letter name and no info beyond its basic label on the left end. RIGHT-click on its Unallocated Space and, from the menu, choose to Create a Partition on the drive. You'll have a choice of how big it should be and most likely want to use all the drive in one volume. (You can use only part of the space. If you do, when you are finished come back here and find the remainder shown as "Unallocated Space". You can create a second Partition or more in it if you want.) For this first Partition, make it the Primary or Active Partition, and NOT bootable because this drive is for data only - you already have a boot drive. When all the choices are made, go ahead with the Partition operation.
When that is done, come back to this new Partition and RIGHT-click again and choose to Format it. Choose the NTFS File System option. A Quick Format will do the job in 5 to 15 minutes. A Full Format will do a Quick Format, then go though every sector of the drive and test it, marking off any faulty ones (very rare) so they won't be used. Full Format takes many hours!
When you are done, exit out of Disk Management, reboot and your newly prepared hard drive should show up in My Computer as an empty unit ready for use.
I am having a similiar problem except my D: drive which I have been using for a long time stopped showing up. Happened after my computer froze and now the system now takes a longer than usual pause between windows load screen and the welcome screen. The drive still shows in bios, but is absent from the disk management.
Kendrac, it is pretty rare that a drive can show up in BIOS and NOT in Disk Management. Look carefully in Disk Management in the LOWER RIGHT pane, and scroll it to see all the hardware devices it sees. My guess is you'll see it there. It may have no drive letter assigned to it, and that can be addresses by RIGHT-clicking on it and giving it a letter name. But it may also have a File System showing as RAW, which means that some of its structure data has been corrupted and it is not recognized. If that is the case, search the web for way to fix that. Do NOT follow any suggestions to Format the drive.
It is not shown at all in disk management. It simply disappeared that time when my computer froze and I rebooted. I tried new cables and different connections on the motherboard with same results. Except if I put the 2nd drive in a connection numbered before the drive with my OS after the initial driver loading windows does not load. If I disconnect the drive the unusually very long pause between windows loading and the welcome screen also doesn't happen.
Well then, your D: drive may have developed a significant hardware fault. Go to the website of its manufacturer and download their free diagnostic utility package. Seagate has Seatools, WD has Data Lifegard. others hae their own. Personally I prefer the version that has you burn your own CD-R and then boot and run from that, completely independent of an OS on your hard drive. Run its tests and write down the info. IF you believe your HDD should be replaced under warranty, the manufacturer probably will want that info before agreeing to do that.
A few items to check:
1. Is the external disk a case and drive you purchased and assembled separately, or is it a complete unit you bought? How old is it? I am wondering whether ti is possible there is a mismatch of first- and second-generation SATA involved. Tell us the make and model number of the external drive.
2. Is the drive connected to your PC by an eSATA cable, or by a USB connection, or by Firewire?
3. If you are using eSATA, is it an eSATA port the was built into your mobo, or are you using an adapter plate on the back that plugs into one of the internal mobo regular SATA ports?
4. What make and model of mobo do you have?
5. If you have an opportunity, can you plug the external drive into another computer and see if it behaves the same?
6. What version of Windows are you using? If you are using an eSATA port built into your mobo, have you loaded any driver necessary for that port into Windows?
1. Is the external disk a case and drive you purchased and assembled separately, or is it a complete unit you bought? How old is it? I am wondering whether ti is possible there is a mismatch of first- and second-generation SATA involved. Tell us the make and model number of the external drive.
2. Is the drive connected to your PC by an eSATA cable, or by a USB connection, or by Firewire?
3. If you are using eSATA, is it an eSATA port the was built into your mobo, or are you using an adapter plate on the back that plugs into one of the internal mobo regular SATA ports?
4. What make and model of mobo do you have?
5. If you have an opportunity, can you plug the external drive into another computer and see if it behaves the same?
6. What version of Windows are you using? If you are using an eSATA port built into your mobo, have you loaded any driver necessary for that port into Windows?
Stormraath
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I have a similar problem, I installed a secondary SATA drive (Maxtor DiamondMax plus 9) into my computer (Mobo: ASUS M2N32 SLI Deluxe, OS: XP Pro SP3). I'm planning to use it for Data Storage as one full disk. I plugged it into my computer I checked my BIOS it was there, I went onto my computer and It was split into 2 different drives (It was previously used), So I unpartitioned it and then began formatting it and just before the format finished I got an error message saying format was unsuccessful and the drive disappeared from the Disk Manager and My Computer however, it still appears in the BIOS. I've tried Using SeaTools and It only reads the functioning drive that is already installed, I tried booting with a Vista install disk to see if It can at least notice the drive and I got a blue screen, I attempted to boot with a Ubuntu install disk and got error messages as well. When the drive is plugged in it also slows down the time between the Windows loading screen and the welcome screen. I've tried using different cables (including power) and it spins up every time I turn the computer on. I'm not sure what else I can do.
Your drive is having some kind of error that Windows cannot handle. Your BIOS can see it (you don't say what the BIOS Setup screens tell you about it). But the long delay as Windows is booting is what happens when Windows encounters an error checking the HDD and re-tries many times before giving up.
You say you tried Seatools and it could not find the disk. I bet you used the version of Seatools for Windows. That software would require that Windows "see" the drive in order to make it available to the software. Go to the Seagate website and download the different version called Seatools for DOS. Get the one that you burn to your own CD-R. You make that disk and then boot from it into a mini-DOS that works entirely independent of Windows or any other OS on any hard drive. It only requires that the BIOS can recognize the HDD you are trying to test. Use that disk to run tests on your used drive.
Now, I find it very interesting that originally My Computer could see it as two drives (Partitions). So at that point windows was NOT having a major problem. Then you "unpartitioned it and then began formatting it...". How? If you used Windows Disk Management to Delete ALL its partitions, one at a time, that should work. BUT you did not say that your next step was to Create a new Primary Partition on that HDD unit. That step MUST be done before you can Format the Partition. Did you do that? Give us a few of these answers for info, and try the Seatools for DOS diagnostics and tell us its output. Then we can help further.
You say you tried Seatools and it could not find the disk. I bet you used the version of Seatools for Windows. That software would require that Windows "see" the drive in order to make it available to the software. Go to the Seagate website and download the different version called Seatools for DOS. Get the one that you burn to your own CD-R. You make that disk and then boot from it into a mini-DOS that works entirely independent of Windows or any other OS on any hard drive. It only requires that the BIOS can recognize the HDD you are trying to test. Use that disk to run tests on your used drive.
Now, I find it very interesting that originally My Computer could see it as two drives (Partitions). So at that point windows was NOT having a major problem. Then you "unpartitioned it and then began formatting it...". How? If you used Windows Disk Management to Delete ALL its partitions, one at a time, that should work. BUT you did not say that your next step was to Create a new Primary Partition on that HDD unit. That step MUST be done before you can Format the Partition. Did you do that? Give us a few of these answers for info, and try the Seatools for DOS diagnostics and tell us its output. Then we can help further.
I found a way around this which I hope is the solution for all: You have to put any CD/DVD drives in a higher placement i.e. Drive Y and Drive Z, this can be done from Disk management, once you have done this, if the HDD is connected; reboot, and it should show as Drive D, (if you only have one previous drive), if it is not connected; shut down, connect the drive and reboot and it should be there. Once this worked for me, I tried with different drives and it worked all times, good luck>
I was having a similar problem as others noted in this thread. My new 1.5 TB drives were recognized by my bios and raid setup bios but they were not in XP disk management. The drives were visible in my raid control software and in the safely remove hardware icon in the tray, but still not in disk management.
Flashing my bios to the latest version made me notice something about the way the raid controller was handling my drives. I noticed that if the raid controller was enabled for a port and the hard drive was not in a raid array, then the drive would not show up in disk management. Disabling the raid on the port would allow windows to see the drive and partition it.
At that point I was able to figure out that the raid controller was woring correctly and set up a mirrored array by turning on the controller on those ports and configuring the array. This then showed up in Windows correctly. I did not know that Windows and the controller would behave this way and did not find anything on the internet that would point me to this.
Flashing my bios to the latest version made me notice something about the way the raid controller was handling my drives. I noticed that if the raid controller was enabled for a port and the hard drive was not in a raid array, then the drive would not show up in disk management. Disabling the raid on the port would allow windows to see the drive and partition it.
At that point I was able to figure out that the raid controller was woring correctly and set up a mirrored array by turning on the controller on those ports and configuring the array. This then showed up in Windows correctly. I did not know that Windows and the controller would behave this way and did not find anything on the internet that would point me to this.
When you add SATA drives to a machine, the BIOS and its RAID management system will recognize the hardware. If you do NOT assign these new drives to a RAID array they will just be stand-alone HDD units.
Now, IF you are using Win XP, it only understands how to use IDE (or PATA) devices. So if your SATA drives have their port modes set in the BIOS to IDE Emulation, Win XP can recognize them and they will show up in Disk Management in the LOWER RIGHT pane, waiting for you to Partition and Format them; then Windows can start to use them. On the other hand, if you set these new drives' port modes to AHCI or Native SATA, Windows cannot communicate with them. You can either change their port modes or, much better yet, you can install into Win XP the driver for AHCI devices so that it CAN use these units. NOTE that Vista and Win 7 already have the AHCI drivers and this is NOT an issue for these OS's.
But now suppose you want to use the new drives as a RAID array. To do that there are three steps, in this sequence:
1. Set the SATA port modes for the drives in question to RAID, Save and Exit.
2. During the POST screens there will be a prompt to hit a certain key to enter the RAID Setup portion of BIOS. Do that and you can use its tools to assign specific HDD units to a RAID array, then initialize it. Note that any HDD units not assigned to a RAID array will remain, by default, as non-RAID stand-alone drive units.
3. After you have booted into Windows you install the required RAID drivers in it. Note that this applies to ALL version of Windows. No version of windows has RAID drivers pre-installed. When I did this step I found that you cannot install a RAID driver in Windows unless the RAID array has already been created in the RAID Setup screens - my Windows refused to load a RAID driver with no RAID devices. Until this driver is installed, Windows cannot access the RAID array. But once the driver is installed, you may NOT have to use Disk Management to Partition and Format the RAID array. Those steps essentially have been done when the RAID Setup system created the array.
Now, IF you are using Win XP, it only understands how to use IDE (or PATA) devices. So if your SATA drives have their port modes set in the BIOS to IDE Emulation, Win XP can recognize them and they will show up in Disk Management in the LOWER RIGHT pane, waiting for you to Partition and Format them; then Windows can start to use them. On the other hand, if you set these new drives' port modes to AHCI or Native SATA, Windows cannot communicate with them. You can either change their port modes or, much better yet, you can install into Win XP the driver for AHCI devices so that it CAN use these units. NOTE that Vista and Win 7 already have the AHCI drivers and this is NOT an issue for these OS's.
But now suppose you want to use the new drives as a RAID array. To do that there are three steps, in this sequence:
1. Set the SATA port modes for the drives in question to RAID, Save and Exit.
2. During the POST screens there will be a prompt to hit a certain key to enter the RAID Setup portion of BIOS. Do that and you can use its tools to assign specific HDD units to a RAID array, then initialize it. Note that any HDD units not assigned to a RAID array will remain, by default, as non-RAID stand-alone drive units.
3. After you have booted into Windows you install the required RAID drivers in it. Note that this applies to ALL version of Windows. No version of windows has RAID drivers pre-installed. When I did this step I found that you cannot install a RAID driver in Windows unless the RAID array has already been created in the RAID Setup screens - my Windows refused to load a RAID driver with no RAID devices. Until this driver is installed, Windows cannot access the RAID array. But once the driver is installed, you may NOT have to use Disk Management to Partition and Format the RAID array. Those steps essentially have been done when the RAID Setup system created the array.
I had the same problem - BIOS is OK - Disk Management do9es ot show SATA 2 - (windows 2003) - did go to Computer -> Properties -> Hardware ->Device Manager -> Disk Drives - Right Click on Disk Drives and Scan for Hardware Changes --- OS picked the drive and life is good
I am too facing the same problem in win 7 the hard disk is neither detecting in win 7 64 bit nor on my friends pc with windows xp 32 bit the problem is it have data also and i want it some guys suggested to reformat it using windows xp but i cant format i need it right away it is just wanted to detect by any OS to get my data Please tell me if u find any solution my id is ethicalid@gmail.com reply me back asap.
ethicalid, what you describe MAY be a hard drive with significant problems. It cannot be detected by Windows, you say. But there are various places to look, and you have not told us details of all of them. So let's re-examine.
1. DO NOT REFORMAT your drive. That will most certainly destroy your data, and it may not solve your problem.
2. Go into BIOS Setup and look there whether your BIOS can detect the drive at the hardware level. On most machines, when you turn it on you hold down a key, usually the "Del" key, and wait for a few parts of the POST displays to pass by until it opens the main menu screen of BIOS Setup. Go to the place where your various hard drives are displayed - often the first set of screens. You should be able to see each HDD, and your optical drive(s), displayed separately on different ports. If the troublesome HDD is not showing up here, it has a major hardware problem because the BIOS cannot communicate with it at all. That could be a complete drive failure, or a failure of its own printed circuit board system, a bad connector cable, or even a bad connector itself. If it is not showing up, just check one more thing before you conclude the hardware is dead. Go to the BIOS screen where the port for this drive (IDE or SATA) is set up, and be SURE that port is Enabled. If not, Enable it and set its port mode to AHCI, then go back to the first screen to see if it is showing now. If you did NOT change anything in the BIOS Setup screens, simply Exit from there to finish booting. If you did change a setting, remember to use the right key to Save and Exit.
3. If your drive is showing in BIOS Setup AND its port mode is set to AHCI, the hardware is working and the problem is likely to be in some software issue between the HDD and Windows. We'll use Disk Management to examine. Click on Start and RIGHT-click on My Computer and choose Manage. In the new window expand the Storage heading if necessary and choose Disk Management. The right hand part will subdivide into two windows. The upper one will show you all the devices Windows is using and understands. The LOWER RIGHT pane shows you those PLUS some other hardware that Windows cannot use yet for whatever reason. This portion SCROLLS so you can see all of its contents. Your troublesome disk should show up there, since the BIOS can see it. Each hardware device in the LOWER RIGHT pane is represented by one larger horizontal box. Within it are a smaller box on the left end with some info about the device - type, size, etc. - and then some other sub-boxes to the right. Each of these represents one Partition on the HDD. If there is any space not assigned to a Partition, it will be represented by a box labeled "Unallocated Space". On many drives there may be only one Partition that uses up all of the HDD space. Within a Partition block will be more information. A Partition is treated by Windows as one "drive". Normally it will show you the drive's name like C:, its Volume Name like Harry's Disk or whatever you set it to be, the size of this drive, the File System it uses like NTFS, and a status like Healthy. Now look closely at that information for your troublesome disk. Does the disk have a letter name assigned to it? What does it show for the File system? Is it FAT32 or NTFS? Or, is it called "RAW"?
4. If your File System on that disk is "RAW", that means some of its basic structure information has been corrupted and that is why Windows cannot figure out how to use it. Look around these forums and elsewhere on the web for ways to fix a RAW format HDD. You usually can get it fixed so that all the information on the HDD can be used again.
5. If all the information on that troublesome disk's partition block information is OK but it merely is missing a letter name like F:, you should be able to fix it here. RIGHT-click on the Partition and choose to Change its Name. Give it any letter not already in use. Now exit out of disk Management and reboot so Windows can put this into into its Registry, and you should find the disk in My Computer again.
Whatever you find, post back here and maybe we can help further. Or if we're lucky, you will have your problem fixed and we can cheer!
1. DO NOT REFORMAT your drive. That will most certainly destroy your data, and it may not solve your problem.
2. Go into BIOS Setup and look there whether your BIOS can detect the drive at the hardware level. On most machines, when you turn it on you hold down a key, usually the "Del" key, and wait for a few parts of the POST displays to pass by until it opens the main menu screen of BIOS Setup. Go to the place where your various hard drives are displayed - often the first set of screens. You should be able to see each HDD, and your optical drive(s), displayed separately on different ports. If the troublesome HDD is not showing up here, it has a major hardware problem because the BIOS cannot communicate with it at all. That could be a complete drive failure, or a failure of its own printed circuit board system, a bad connector cable, or even a bad connector itself. If it is not showing up, just check one more thing before you conclude the hardware is dead. Go to the BIOS screen where the port for this drive (IDE or SATA) is set up, and be SURE that port is Enabled. If not, Enable it and set its port mode to AHCI, then go back to the first screen to see if it is showing now. If you did NOT change anything in the BIOS Setup screens, simply Exit from there to finish booting. If you did change a setting, remember to use the right key to Save and Exit.
3. If your drive is showing in BIOS Setup AND its port mode is set to AHCI, the hardware is working and the problem is likely to be in some software issue between the HDD and Windows. We'll use Disk Management to examine. Click on Start and RIGHT-click on My Computer and choose Manage. In the new window expand the Storage heading if necessary and choose Disk Management. The right hand part will subdivide into two windows. The upper one will show you all the devices Windows is using and understands. The LOWER RIGHT pane shows you those PLUS some other hardware that Windows cannot use yet for whatever reason. This portion SCROLLS so you can see all of its contents. Your troublesome disk should show up there, since the BIOS can see it. Each hardware device in the LOWER RIGHT pane is represented by one larger horizontal box. Within it are a smaller box on the left end with some info about the device - type, size, etc. - and then some other sub-boxes to the right. Each of these represents one Partition on the HDD. If there is any space not assigned to a Partition, it will be represented by a box labeled "Unallocated Space". On many drives there may be only one Partition that uses up all of the HDD space. Within a Partition block will be more information. A Partition is treated by Windows as one "drive". Normally it will show you the drive's name like C:, its Volume Name like Harry's Disk or whatever you set it to be, the size of this drive, the File System it uses like NTFS, and a status like Healthy. Now look closely at that information for your troublesome disk. Does the disk have a letter name assigned to it? What does it show for the File system? Is it FAT32 or NTFS? Or, is it called "RAW"?
4. If your File System on that disk is "RAW", that means some of its basic structure information has been corrupted and that is why Windows cannot figure out how to use it. Look around these forums and elsewhere on the web for ways to fix a RAW format HDD. You usually can get it fixed so that all the information on the HDD can be used again.
5. If all the information on that troublesome disk's partition block information is OK but it merely is missing a letter name like F:, you should be able to fix it here. RIGHT-click on the Partition and choose to Change its Name. Give it any letter not already in use. Now exit out of disk Management and reboot so Windows can put this into into its Registry, and you should find the disk in My Computer again.
Whatever you find, post back here and maybe we can help further. Or if we're lucky, you will have your problem fixed and we can cheer!
towhog66
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- May 27, 2009
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man today was one of those days.... i could not get my new sats drive to work, i tried every thing i know and could think of... and i looked every were on line to find info, no luck till i read ur post..... your info was right on..... i want to think you!!!!!!!
now i can back up my pics so on and get of this damn RC 7....... IT WORKED SO GOOD THINK YOUSo I got my new SSD drive. I installed like the directions stated but the drive did not show up when I started windows 7 64bit.. I rebooted, Checked in the BIOS and it was there made sure it was enabled as well. booted window's and still not there. checked under device manager not found, checked through Acronis Cloning Softwear, not found. ran chkdisk still not found. So i took it out tried all SATA ports, tried all power supplies. still same story. I un hooked it and connected VIA USB and the drive was then visiable. formated drive NTSF and thought that would fix problem.. reconnected it via SATA and same story. still not found. Please help for I am at a loss on what to do now.
I also have the problem with a new SATA drive being seen in BIOS but not in Windows Device Manager. However I have cloned this new disc using Diskcopy 2.3 ( non windows cloning tool) with XP from another that is recognised when it was in Windows. Disconnecting the original source disk I can run XP on the new disc, YET it is still not recognised by Windows device manager. However the plot gets thicker....using another partition tool (Hard Disk launcher from Paragon Software) I can place another partition and format it, but only as a FAT16 or FAT32. NTFS is out of the question saying the is a 'directory structure problem' please use CHKDSK. But I can't because Windows doesn't see it!!! Am getting really p****d off with Microsoft products.
Can anyone proffer a solution? and please don't tell me to go into Device Manager. I have been in the computer industry for nigh on 40 years and this is being to baffle me.....
Can anyone proffer a solution? and please don't tell me to go into Device Manager. I have been in the computer industry for nigh on 40 years and this is being to baffle me.....
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