Bios detects SSD drives but not HDD drives, they dont even seem to be powering up anymore

[Paul_183]

I've recently upgraded my pc due to a motherboard dieing on me. All was working fine before this so I know the drives work fine.

My bios detects my 2 SSD drives and optical drive, but my 2 HDD drives are no longer detected in bios.

Ive tried to troubleshoot it by replacing cables, using a new power supply and running just 1 disk at a time, nothing has worked.

Im pretty sure the HDD are not even powering up because I cannot feel any vibrations or noise from them. Ive checked with a new power supply (EVGA 750w G2) and new power cables and they still do not spin up

Specs

Asus H170 PRO
i7 6700
16gb Ram
Corsair CX600M

Samsung evo 850 500gb
samsung evo 840 250gb
Seagate barracuda 2tb
Samsung f1 1tb

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, @Paul!

You've done a great job with the troubleshooting so far! I'd also suggest you try resolving the issue by checking if you have the latest SATA controller & Chipset drivers installed on the mobo from the manufacturer's official support page. While on it, you might as well check the BIOS version and make sure you have updated it. Another thing that might help is resetting BIOS . Afterwards, you will need to re-configure all the manual changes you have made in the BIOS interface, though. (boot order, SATA mode, etc.)

Do you have access to another desktop computer? If you do, try plugging the HDDs there and see if they would get detected properly. If the issue is still present and they are not powering up, you are most probably dealing with 2 dead hard drives. In this case, I'd strongly recommend checking their warranty status through their manufacturer's official website. If they are still covered, you should be able to RMA them and get a replacement from their customer support.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Shaun o]

Your problem is likely that you have Paul on the new motherboard, and in the bios settings two Sata bios chip sets.

One will be Intel based Paul, and the other Sata chip will be from another brand maker.

Depending on how many Sata ports the board has, and drives it can support the Sata ports on the motherboard will be divided in two half`s where for example X amount of Sata devices will be controlled by the Intel Sata chipset.

And X amount of Sata devices will be controlled by the other Sata based chip set in the bios options.

It will depend on what sata ports you have connected each sata based drive to of your motherboard.

By default on of the two Sata based chip sets in the bios is disabled and must be enabled depending on what sata ports each drive is connected to on the motherboard.

It is the reason why in a lot of cases you cannot see the drive connected, even if you know the Sata data cable is in good condition and connected, and power is also connected to the drives in question that are not picked up by the bios.

So I suggest you take a good look in the bios as i`m sure you will find it to be the case Paul.

You simply forgot to enable the second provided Sata chip set in the bios.

Also you can often set the drives and each sata port to be enabled or disabled in the bios settings, and also select the type of mode each port is set to Achi, Sata, or Raid selected from sata port 1 to 4 as and example.

So check what mode each port is set to in the bios.

It is always possible that if the board only supports Sata 3 based drives and is not backwards compatible with sata 2 based drives and the two drives are only sata 2 devices why they are not detected when they were with the old motherboard.

If there is an option anywhere in the bios for sata port speed settings I suggest you try to lower the port speeds for the 1Tb and 2Tb drives to a 2.0 setting if it can be done via the bios settings.

For the drives using the set sata port.

 

[Paul_183]

Hey there, @Paul!

You've done a great job with the troubleshooting so far! I'd also suggest you try resolving the issue by checking if you have the latest SATA controller & Chipset drivers installed on the mobo from the manufacturer's official support page. While on it, you might as well check the BIOS version and make sure you have updated it. Another thing that might help is resetting BIOS . Afterwards, you will need to re-configure all the manual changes you have made in the BIOS interface, though. (boot order, SATA mode, etc.)

Do you have access to another desktop computer? If you do, try plugging the HDDs there and see if they would get detected properly. If the issue is still present and they are not powering up, you are most probably dealing with 2 dead hard drives. In this case, I'd strongly recommend checking their warranty status through their manufacturer's official website. If they are still covered, you should be able to RMA them and get a replacement from their customer support.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
SuperSoph_WD

Thanks for the help, ive just swapped the hard drive in my brother's pc and it still doesn't power up,

I guess the next question is will it be easy to recover the data?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Thanks for the help, ive just swapped the hard drive in my brother's pc and it still doesn't power up,
I guess the next question is will it be easy to recover the data?

If the HDDs are not picked up by the system and you are unable to detect it anywhere, it means that they are most probably dead. 🙁 Recovering the data is never a 100 % affair even for professional data recovery companies, however, they are your best bet on getting these files back. 🙁 Unfortunately, if the HDDs are not even powering up, you won't be able to even attempt anything by yourself without causing more stress and further damage to the drives.

I'd recommend getting in touch with a professional data recovery company ASAP and explain to them the issue in details.

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD