I built my first PC a few months ago, with nary an issue. I'm now trying to install a SATA SSD, and have spent hours failing to get it to work. First thing to say is that I tried out a regular 2.5" hard drive using the same connections, and it worked just fine. Hopefully someone can help please.
Relevant hardware / software:
Windows 10 Pro
Motherboard: Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming itx/ac (Fast Boot disabled, Secure Boot disabled, AHCI SATA mode)
Power supply: Corsair SF750
SSDs:
NVME: Existing Samsung 970 Evo boot drive (works just fine)
SATA: Crucial MX500 2TB (this is the drive I want to install, previously happily attached to PC via USB 3.1 gen 2 enclosure, in exFAT)
SATA: Crucial MX300 1TB (previously used as PS4 internal drive, cracked out for testing)
Issue:
BIOS doesn't detect SSDs at all.
Windows sees SATA SSDs in Device Manager, but won't let me do anything with them in Disk Management.
The MX500 was sometimes showing up with odd characters after its name in Device Manager, and sometimes disappearing. Disk Management would let me attempt to Initialise it, but would fail. Sometimes Disk Management wouldn't see it at all, sometimes a rescan would cause it to disappear.
It's now back in its enclosure, formatted in NTFS so I can use it almost as intended, but I'd still like to install it properly. The drive works fine and passes Crucial's device test.
The MX300 still isn't detected by the BIOS, but shows up in Device Manager normally. Disk Management saw it both times I rebooted, but the first time it showed as maybe 10 partitions, and the second as one "protected" partition. I couldn't select format and there was no option for initialise.
Things I've tried:
As I said, I tried out a regular 2.5" hard drive (Toshiba 320GB, exFAT, stock drive of my PS3), and it worked just fine.
I tried SATA header 2 and SATA header 3 (the other two are under my heatsink and I don't really want to take that off unless I have to).
I tried three different connectors on the power supply cable (though note I have not tried the other SATA / peripheral port on the power supply itself, nor have I swapped out the cable).
I tried enabling "SATA Aggressive Link Power Management" in the BIOS.
Things I could try:
Swapping out the SATA data cable - the mobo came with two.
Buying a new SATA data cable.
Swapping out the power cable - there's at least one more.
Replacing the mobo (please gods no).
Help!
Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong? Are any of the things I could try actually worth doing? If a regular hard drive works just fine, and the SSDs are working fine in other places, I imagine it's the motherboard which is at fault? My only other thought is maybe the data cable is faulty, but works just well enough for a regular old hard drive - is that possible?
Thanks!
Relevant hardware / software:
Windows 10 Pro
Motherboard: Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming itx/ac (Fast Boot disabled, Secure Boot disabled, AHCI SATA mode)
Power supply: Corsair SF750
SSDs:
NVME: Existing Samsung 970 Evo boot drive (works just fine)
SATA: Crucial MX500 2TB (this is the drive I want to install, previously happily attached to PC via USB 3.1 gen 2 enclosure, in exFAT)
SATA: Crucial MX300 1TB (previously used as PS4 internal drive, cracked out for testing)
Issue:
BIOS doesn't detect SSDs at all.
Windows sees SATA SSDs in Device Manager, but won't let me do anything with them in Disk Management.
The MX500 was sometimes showing up with odd characters after its name in Device Manager, and sometimes disappearing. Disk Management would let me attempt to Initialise it, but would fail. Sometimes Disk Management wouldn't see it at all, sometimes a rescan would cause it to disappear.
It's now back in its enclosure, formatted in NTFS so I can use it almost as intended, but I'd still like to install it properly. The drive works fine and passes Crucial's device test.
The MX300 still isn't detected by the BIOS, but shows up in Device Manager normally. Disk Management saw it both times I rebooted, but the first time it showed as maybe 10 partitions, and the second as one "protected" partition. I couldn't select format and there was no option for initialise.
Things I've tried:
As I said, I tried out a regular 2.5" hard drive (Toshiba 320GB, exFAT, stock drive of my PS3), and it worked just fine.
I tried SATA header 2 and SATA header 3 (the other two are under my heatsink and I don't really want to take that off unless I have to).
I tried three different connectors on the power supply cable (though note I have not tried the other SATA / peripheral port on the power supply itself, nor have I swapped out the cable).
I tried enabling "SATA Aggressive Link Power Management" in the BIOS.
Things I could try:
Swapping out the SATA data cable - the mobo came with two.
Buying a new SATA data cable.
Swapping out the power cable - there's at least one more.
Replacing the mobo (please gods no).
Help!
Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong? Are any of the things I could try actually worth doing? If a regular hard drive works just fine, and the SSDs are working fine in other places, I imagine it's the motherboard which is at fault? My only other thought is maybe the data cable is faulty, but works just well enough for a regular old hard drive - is that possible?
Thanks!
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