2nd SATA drive detected in BIOS but NOT in Windows Disk Management

[Guest]

Sometimes SATA Rev 2.0 devices aren't properly recognized by SATA Rev 1.0 controllers. Most SATA Rev 2.0 drives have a jumper that you can use to force them to use the SATA Rev 1.0 protocol to get around such issues.

Hi Sminlal,

Thanks for the reply but tried it.......no effect.

best regards............wiggly

 

[Guest]

Hi All,

For those who still cannot see their drive despite taking all the advice from other contributors I would suggest the following which, after subsequent toil and investigation, has worked for me.

Is your system made by Dell?

If so, it seems that Dell place a FAT16 unnamed partition on the front of the disk for utility? purposes. This partition seems to have its own Master Boot record and affects the ability of Windows to see the disk in Device Manager. GET RID OF IT!
However this is no easy task because if you can't see it then you can't get rid of it.

My solution....Obtain another disk with nothing on it, get hold of (non-windows) Diskcopy 2.3 iso image (bootable), blow it onto a CD and boot and run it to clone the 'other disk' onto the problem disk.

regards to all

 

[Guest]

Hi All,

For those who still cannot see their drive despite taking all the advice from other contributors I would suggest the following which, after subsequent toil and investigation, has worked for me.

Is your system made by Dell?

If so, it seems that Dell place a FAT16 unnamed partition on the front of the disk for utility? purposes. This partition seems to have its own Master Boot record and affects the ability of Windows to see the disk in Device Manager. GET RID OF IT!
However this is no easy task because if you can't see it then you can't get rid of it.

My solution....Obtain another disk with nothing on it, get hold of (non-windows) Diskcopy 2.3 iso image (bootable), blow it onto a CD and boot and run it to clone the 'other disk' onto the problem disk.

regards to all

This is how I resolved the issue of my drive not showing. Right click COMPUTER and select manage. Expand Storage and see if your drive is active, primary, etc... (You can identify if the drive in question is displayed by disk size). If so right click the un labeled volumn and select Change drive letter and path...
An default drive letter will be selected by windows, or you can select your own drive letter. Hit enter and check windows explorer to see your drive(s). Hope this helps. Vicmoney9360@gmail.com

 

[ronruosch]

you gotta go into windows and format the hard drive to use it!

im using vista right now.. so intructions are: control panel > administrative tools > computer management > Storage (tab) > Disk Management (sub-tab)

from there, you should see the new hard drive.. you have to partition it (if you want) and format it to use it! you can also specify the drive label..

in xp, it should be pretty similar..

Abercronbie, please READ the OP before responding. This issue is the SATA drive is NOT SHOWN in Disk Management. The drive CANNOT be formatted by Windows if Windows can't see it.

 

[faisee75]

man i got the same problem and i have very very very important data in it. m toooo much worried abt it i dont know wat to do?????if you find any solution then plzzz tell me too.

 

[Paperdoc]

faisee75, your problem sounds different. Many of the previous posters were trying to get new empty disks working. You say you have a disk full of valuable data. Describe more precisely what you have.

Was this disk working before this, and very recently? Was it hooked up in this computer and working, or in another computer?

Is this a brand new computer you moved your hard disk into? Are you trying to use this older disk full of data as the boot drive in a new computer?

Or, maybe your computer is working just fine, but you cannot get to the data on the older drive full of stuff. Is that it?

What type of drive is this older one: SATA or IDE? What about the other drives in the machine?

How do you know the drive is not working? Does it simply not exist in My Computer? Or, is it there, but you can't access any of its files? Do you get any error messages? WARNING: DO NOT FORMAT THAT DRIVE! If you get a message saying the drive needs to be Formatted, say NO!

Can you "see" the old drive in BIOS Setup screens as a detected hardware device with the right characteristics? If you can see it there but not in Windows' My Computer, there is a tool in Windows called Disk Management we can help you to use to investigate what is going on. If it does not even show up in BIOS Setup screens, there may be a serious hardware flaw, and there are tools for that, too. But to help with that we need to know exactly what drive you have - manufacturer name and model number.

Don't panic. Fill us in on some of these details and we can help.

 

[faisee75]

it was very valuable to me bocz my pics my assingments and other major projects was in it. n it was Maxtor 250GB SATA i was using this hard disk about 3 or 4 years i guess in same pc n i didnt remove nothing i just turned on my PC accessed in to WIN XP SP3 n then system haulted. i restarted manually but it was the last tym i saw the window then i tried to get in to bios n same thing happend system tried to detect the hard n after 5 to 6 mins system detects it. but when i tried to reinstall windows or tried to get access in older window it wont boot. i tried to run that hard in slave but in MY COMPUTER also dont show the partitions. i tried everything that i knw but didnt succeed. n also slow downs the PC. i used disk management but didnt detect the hard i used recovery software but nothing happened. i thought it was hardware prob may b hard disk media is not working properly but then i thought that if media is not working properly then hard disk would not detect by BIOS.

 

[Paperdoc]

OK, this drive was working in this machine for a few years and then suddenly stopped. I'm not sure how, but apparently you can boot and run this machine still (must be using a different drive to boot from) in Win XP, SP3.

This could be a hardware or software problem, so let's try the hardware side first. My eyes caught something. You said you "tried to run that hard in slave" with no success. Now, this is a SATA drive, so there is NO Master or Slave jumper to set. If you actually changed any jumpers on the back edge of the drive unit you might have caused a problem, although likely only temporary. So, did you change any jumpers there? If you did, go to the Maxtor website and look up exactly the model number of your drive to find it proper jumper setting. Then make sure it is set that way. Or, maybe you did not change jumpers and only used the word "Slave" to mean it is not the boot drive.

Next, while you are there on the website (Maxtor actually is now owned by Seagate), download and install on your machine the Seagate Seatools here:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=SeaTools&vgnextoid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

I recommend the "for DOS" version. With it you burn your own floppy disk or bootable CD to use for testing. So, use it to make your diagnostic testing disk. There is a version that runs under Windows if you can't burn your own disk.

Now, reboot your machine and go immediately into BIOS Setup. On most machines you hold down the "Del" key while it is starting up. After a few lines of normal info it will take you to the opening screen of Setup. There usually are tabs across the top for various groups of screens, and then a menu system from there. There are instructions at the bottom for how to move around and change things, and on the right for the meaning of the options.

Find the screen where your SATA drives are configured. Check that all the ports are Enabled. Then nearby check the SATA Port Mode setting. I expect you need all your SATA ports to be in IDE (or PATA) Emulation mode. Do NOT set it to RAID unless you have some RAID drives. If you set to native SATA or AHCI mode, Windows can only access the drive if it has a driver for that type of device added in.

So, does this screen show you all your SATA drives that you know about? Now, exit out of this screen and go back to the opening screen where it lists all the drives in the machine. Are they all there? Is this Maxtor showing up at all? If not, it may have a serious hardware flaw.

Still in Setup, find the menu where you set the Boot Priority Sequence. Set it to boot from your floppy or optical drive first, and your actual bootable hard drive unit after that. Do NOT let it try to boot from any HDD that does not have your OS on it. Save and Exit from BIOS Setup and let Windows boot up. Then shut down.

Next step depends on whether or not you could "see" the Maxtor 250 GB unit in BIOS. If not, you should open the case and check the two cables to it. Disconnect them and reconnect two or three times each, carefully, to be sure they are connected. Do this for both cables at the back of the HDD unit, and also for the other end of the data ribbon that plugs into a mobo port. Close up the case. Put your bootable diagnostic disk (floppy or CD) in its drive and boot the machine from there.

This will not be a normal "boot". It actually loads a mini-DOS into RAM and you run all the tests that way via a menu system. First you have to set which hard drive in your system you want to test. Is the Maxtor 250 GB unit available here to test? If so, select it and start using the tests. Pay attention to the screen information. Most of the simple tests will not change any data on the drive. BUT there are some tests, and especially some repair tools, that WILL destroy old data. So do NOT run and data-destructive routines unless you have decided that data recovery is impossible.

The tests will tell you what sort of hardware problems your HDD has, and may help you fix them. Report here what they say. IF it actually finds problems and fixes them for you, OR if it finds no problems, then you'll have the hardware part working OK.

At this point, quit. Remove the diagnostic disk from the machine and use it normally. Report here your progress so we can advise what to do next.

 

[Tartar07]

In my case the unrecognised drive was not empty, it contained all the data from the last configuration of the machine so I did not want to format it. In the Manage/ Storage dialog described above it was shown as 'foreign'. Right click menu revealed an option 'import foreign disks". That worked fine.

 

[jnaut]

OK, this drive was working in this machine for a few years and then suddenly stopped. I'm not sure how, but apparently you can boot and run this machine still (must be using a different drive to boot from) in Win XP, SP3.

This could be a hardware or software problem, so let's try the hardware side first. My eyes caught something. You said you "tried to run that hard in slave" with no success. Now, this is a SATA drive, so there is NO Master or Slave jumper to set. If you actually changed any jumpers on the back edge of the drive unit you might have caused a problem, although likely only temporary. So, did you change any jumpers there? If you did, go to the Maxtor website and look up exactly the model number of your drive to find it proper jumper setting. Then make sure it is set that way. Or, maybe you did not change jumpers and only used the word "Slave" to mean it is not the boot drive.

Next, while you are there on the website (Maxtor actually is now owned by Seagate), download and install on your machine the Seagate Seatools here:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=SeaTools&vgnextoid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

I recommend the "for DOS" version. With it you burn your own floppy disk or bootable CD to use for testing. So, use it to make your diagnostic testing disk. There is a version that runs under Windows if you can't burn your own disk.

Now, reboot your machine and go immediately into BIOS Setup. On most machines you hold down the "Del" key while it is starting up. After a few lines of normal info it will take you to the opening screen of Setup. There usually are tabs across the top for various groups of screens, and then a menu system from there. There are instructions at the bottom for how to move around and change things, and on the right for the meaning of the options.

Find the screen where your SATA drives are configured. Check that all the ports are Enabled. Then nearby check the SATA Port Mode setting. I expect you need all your SATA ports to be in IDE (or PATA) Emulation mode. Do NOT set it to RAID unless you have some RAID drives. If you set to native SATA or AHCI mode, Windows can only access the drive if it has a driver for that type of device added in.

So, does this screen show you all your SATA drives that you know about? Now, exit out of this screen and go back to the opening screen where it lists all the drives in the machine. Are they all there? Is this Maxtor showing up at all? If not, it may have a serious hardware flaw.

Still in Setup, find the menu where you set the Boot Priority Sequence. Set it to boot from your floppy or optical drive first, and your actual bootable hard drive unit after that. Do NOT let it try to boot from any HDD that does not have your OS on it. Save and Exit from BIOS Setup and let Windows boot up. Then shut down.

Next step depends on whether or not you could "see" the Maxtor 250 GB unit in BIOS. If not, you should open the case and check the two cables to it. Disconnect them and reconnect two or three times each, carefully, to be sure they are connected. Do this for both cables at the back of the HDD unit, and also for the other end of the data ribbon that plugs into a mobo port. Close up the case. Put your bootable diagnostic disk (floppy or CD) in its drive and boot the machine from there.

This will not be a normal "boot". It actually loads a mini-DOS into RAM and you run all the tests that way via a menu system. First you have to set which hard drive in your system you want to test. Is the Maxtor 250 GB unit available here to test? If so, select it and start using the tests. Pay attention to the screen information. Most of the simple tests will not change any data on the drive. BUT there are some tests, and especially some repair tools, that WILL destroy old data. So do NOT run and data-destructive routines unless you have decided that data recovery is impossible.

The tests will tell you what sort of hardware problems your HDD has, and may help you fix them. Report here what they say. IF it actually finds problems and fixes them for you, OR if it finds no problems, then you'll have the hardware part working OK.

At this point, quit. Remove the diagnostic disk from the machine and use it normally. Report here your progress so we can advise what to do next.

Intrigued by your response to this mail trail I request any help you can give on the following problem:-

Setup XP Pro SP2
Sata 2 Primary 320GB HD (ST3320418AS) Partitioned NTFS 130GB ‘Drive C’ op. system & programme files; and 2 further partitions (were ‘E’ & ’F’) 160GB & 10GB
Second 40GB HD IDE Master partitioned into drives (H & I) one loaded with XP for emergency boot. (This HD Drive no problem, shows as expected in Computer Management)
CD/DVD removable drives at ‘J’ & ‘G’
Card Reader at ’K’, ‘L’, ‘M’, & ‘N’
Again all working smoothly

Now ‘E’ & ‘F’ missing in Windows!
In computer management the ‘top box’ lists ‘H’, ‘I’ & ‘C’ – showing ‘C’ as healthy (System) NTFS and 127.99GB.
The lower individual drive listings (with no ‘block’ for ‘E’ nor ‘F’) show ‘C’ as one single NTFS partition of 298GB?

Have tried:-

• Booting in from secondary drive, and interrogating primary, gives no additional information.
• System restore shows the warning
"Changes made to drives F:\E:\C:\ after this point cannot be reversed because the drive was either excluded from system restore monitoring or was turned off or removed"

• Using the various Windows tools through dos command returned one of 2 messages:-
“A format error was found in the private region of the disk – could not get disk geometry” or
“Opening of drive failed with 2”

• A-FF Find & Mount returns the two partitions as if there is no problem.

Through the latter programme I have backed up the files on ‘E’ & ‘F’ and would be happy to re-format them, but am trying to avoid formatting ‘C’ with its 50 or so programmes on it?

Thanks & Regards
Jnaut
jnauttech@gmail.com

 

[Paperdoc]

It certainly appears that the Partition Table on that Seagate 320 GB SATA drive is corrupted so that Windows thinks it has only one Partition consisting of the entire drive unit. And yet A-FF Find and Mount is able to find the "missing" Partitions E and F. I don't know how it works and where it started looking, but obviously it did find the Directories and File Allocation structures on those so it could access the files.

I have not had to deal with this myself, so do NOT take this a experienced advice. It's just suggestions. The thing you MIGHT need to fix this is some Partition Recovery software. These tools are supposed to be able to find the actual Partitions on an HDD unit and re-write a corrected Partition Table so the entire disk structure becomes usable again. That's where I'd start.

Windows Install CD's usually have a utility called FIXMBR for re-writing the MBR and Partition Table on an HDD. BUT I do not know whether it just assumes a basic structure, or whether it can analyze the actual structure of an HDD before correcting those critical pieces.

The other built-in Windows utility is Scandisk. BUT I do not believe it ever looks beyond the "disk" (that is, Partition) it is working on, so I doubt very much it could correct your issue.

The other option I could suggest you try, IF you have a spare hard drive, is to use a cloning utility to clone your existing C: drive to another unit. I'm hoping that, if you're lucky, the cloning software might find and clone ONLY the material actually on the C: drive - all its files, etc. A cloning utility (NOT the same as a drive mirroring utility) decides up front how large the clone Partition will be and Creates the Destination Partition, thus writing its own correct Partition Table on the Destination unit, then copies / writes the critical first couple of files needed for booting to the requisite position in that Partition, then copies absolutely every live file from the source to the Destination. It does NOT blindly copy old junk from Sectors of the Source drive that are not actually parts of active files. That's why I'm thinking it might manage to Create a good Partition and copy to it only the correct material. This would leave you with a clone of C: that is perfectly good and quite ready and able to become your boot drive called C:.

If that works, you then would have two choices. One would be to use it that way and simply go to your old 320 GB unit and Delete all of its Partitions, then Create one or more new Partitions and Format them. This last step would rewrite a correct Partition Table on it and make its organization usable again. Then you could use it as a data disk, and continue using the "spare" unit as your C: boot drive. The other option would be to wipe out the old 320 GB unit similar to above, then use the cloning software again to re-clone BACK to the 320 GB drive and in that way re-establish it as your C: drive. Then you could Create on it the other two Partitions (E: and F and restore to them the files you already have recovered. This would leave the "spare" drive no longer needed in your machine.

Cloning software comes from various sources. Two FREE ones are downloadable utilities from Seagate (Disk Wizard) and WD (Acronis True Image WD Edition). In each case they are customized versions of a very good multi-purpose package (Acronis True Image) that includes cloning as one tool. HOWEVER, each is limited to making clone copies TO a drive made by the respective suppliers. For example, to clone TO a Seagate HDD, you could use the Disk Wizard package, but not the one from WD. In your case, IF you want to go the last route I suggested - clone first to some spare HDD, clean off your old Seagate 320 GB unit, then clone back to it - the last stage would have to use the Disk Wizard software. So, for convenience, it might be handy if the temporary spare HDD used for the first cloning stage also were a Seagate unit that Disk Wizard can use.

IMPORTANT note on using those cloning packages. When I've used them their default configuration is to find the size of the Partition on the Source drive and merely duplicate that on the Destination unit, no matter how much spare space that may leave. But in the menu system you can customize all this stuff, and there is a place where you can manually specify the size of the new Partition being created on the Destination Drive to receive the clone copy. In your case I think it would be necessary, to avoid any confusion, to do this at the very first cloning operation so that the clone on the spare drive is 128 GB, not 298. One other item, whether or not this new Partition is Bootable, will be set to yes, and that is the correct setting.

 

[jnaut]

Amazing Magic! But first thank you for your time in assisting with a comprehensive mail.
Your reference to ‘FIXMBR’ had me Google it, which in turn led me to a programme ‘testdisk’.
A 1.5MB download of ‘testdisk 6.11.3.win.zip’, extraction, and then running the file found the partitions - exactly as A-FF Find & Mount had.
Following down through the programme’s procedures ended up with a request for reboot.
On re-opening Windows came up with its found new hardware flag, followed by ‘hardware installed, but reboot required, flag.
Following this reboot, both ‘My Computer’ and ‘Disk Management’ showed the missing partitions, (complete with all files) as ‘D’ & ‘E’, just as if nothing had ever happened!!
Incidentally all the above was done whilst operating in the ‘C’ partition of the same drive, which Windows had been showing as 129MB and 298MB – depending which part of Disk Management you wanted to believe.
Don’t suppose I will ever know how I, or Windows, lost it. But again many thanks

 

[leotm]

The problem may be you're not looking in just the right spot . Click Start, RIGHT-click My Computer in the window, then click on Manage from the menu. In the new Computer Management window expand "Storage" if necessary and click on Disk Management. I expect OP (damaster) and joses both have got this far. Now, examine the TWO right-hand panes. The upper one shows you only the devices Windows already knows how to use. The lower one, which SCROLLS, also shows you other devices Windows does not yet understand. Your new disk should be here with no letter name and no info. RIGHT-click on it and, from the menu, choose to Partition 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, reboot and your newly prepared hard drive should show up in My Computer as an empty unit ready for use.

Just to say thanks Paperdoc.
Had to look up couple things like whether to choose MBR or GPT and best File Allocation Size during the process, and ended up using Windows 7's wizard, but you got me going in the right direction to get my 2nd Samsung HD103SJ 1TB SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache started up.
I'd also really recommend Diskeeper 2010 Pro Premier to the high-end user to prevent fragmentation in the first place, real-time background deframenting and more common files are given fastest access. More here.

 

[AllisonM]

I did all this after 3 hours of fiddlin' about, but now my CD/DVD device can't be found... had to move it to SATA2. Any ideas on how I can get my computer to recognize it exists?

Alli

 

[Edmo117]

Paperdoc is the man!!

Many thanks for your posts. I had the problem with a second SATA drive on Windows XP and following his instructions has sorted it out in no time.

Many thanks
Edmo117

 

[towangle]

I didn't see this covered in the discussion. For some, the problem may be that their SATA ports are turned off.

I have a Dell 8400. I bought a 2nd HDD (Western Digital). When I first installed the drive it did not show up in Disk Manager. I tried to find it in the BIOS and did not see it there either. I eventually figured out that my extra SATA ports were turned off (supposedly the default is ON). Once I turned on the right SATA port in the BIOS, Windows recognized the new hardware and it was smooth sailing.

 

[Guest]

I had a similar problem -i have an AMD 6 core with twin 750Gb sata drives and an old IDE drive - the data was continually being corrupted on one of the SATA drives and then either the IDE drive or one of the SATA drives kept disappearing. (Win7 ultimate)

The problem was my PSU was only giving me about 450 Watts and I needed above 550 Watts - so a new 700 watt power supply and everything is working great - i even managed to overclock my 6 cores by 15% (not that i need it) but if its there i'll have it.

My advice is use one of the PSU calculators add 10% on and then buy the highest rated PSU you can abve that value.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey