Cannot find a second Hard Drive I installed on a PC I just built.

[Matthew Utoft]

Hello, new to the world of understanding computers so any help I can get is greatly appreciated. I recently just build my first gaming PC and am having some issues with getting me second Hard drive to work. I am working with a ASRock Extreme 4 mother board. I can't find my 1 TB Toshiba Hard Drive anywhere within partitioning settings or on my start up options when i hit F2 (I forget the acronym) Here are a list of the steps i have taken when trying to locate the HD.

1. I installed my first hard drive a Solid State 120gb Samsung for just my Operating System. I installed a few things that the Motherboard disk had on it as well as Windows 7 64bit Professional. Then I shut down my pc and unplugged it to install my Toshiba HD. SATA plug-ins are SATA-0 SSHD, SATA-1 LG Disk Drive, SATA-3 Toshiba HD

2. After installing my main HD into the PC and being unable to locate it I tried several different things.

I changed up my wiring going form Disk Drive to Toshiba HD to Power Supply, to SSHD to Toshiba HD to Power Supply. When i did that it said i needed to a system repair, but it could not find any issues. I tried unhooking my SSHD with all that had been loaded onto it, and hooking up just the Toshiba HD and that stayed in the "Windows is Starting" screen for 15 minutes, so I rewired it all again SSHD to Toshiba HD to Power supply, and all the respective inputs on the Motherboard as well as adjusted some things within the F2 menu during start up. Now I am here with both HD's connected and no issues with start up. But still unable to locate my HD,. (Also note, I cannot find the Toshiba HD in the F2 menu.)

Please help, I am excited to see what this machine i have assembled is capable and enthusiastic to learn and help others in troubles they may encounter.
p.s. please be gentle with me I don't understand all the acronyms that are used, although I am not beyond looking them up.

Thank you for any input you may have.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Does your new PC boot in to Windows and run okay with the non-OS hard drive not connected up at all?

 

[Matthew Utoft]

Does your new PC boot in to Windows and run okay with the non-OS hard drive not connected up at all?

Yes it did, and last night I got it to boot up with both connected, although when I would start it, the rig would take considerably longer to start up. With out the non-OS HD connected it would boot in about 5-10 seconds but with it connected it would take about 1 minute or more.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Mmm - I would suspect the non-OS drive is faulty so I would test it with SeaTools:
http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/

 

[ArtPog]

1. As Philip suggested it would be a good idea to test the Toshiba with a HDD diagnostic tool. The Seagate SeaTools is a good one and should detect the Toshiba assuming it's a non-defective disk.

2. Can we assume there's no longer any problem (at least for the moment)? You were able to access the contents (whatever data is on that disk) after you booted to your Samsung?

3. As a general proposition it's best if your boot drive is connected the first SATA 6 Gb/s connector on the motherboard - that would be SATA3_A0. Your Toshiba connected to the SATA3_A1 connector. Any your optical drive (I assume that's the LG, yes?) to one of the SATA 3 Gb/s connectors, e.g., the SATA2 connector. While not crucial that should be a good arrangement in your system as now configured with those components.

 

[ArtPog]

BTW, you apparently expressed some disappointment over the longer boot time when the Toshiba was connected as a secondary HDD. Be advised this is the norm; in virtually every system the boot time will take longer - sometimes considerably so - because a secondary drive is connected to the system during the boot. Count your blessings over the 10-second boot of the Samsung SSD when its solely connected. That's fast. The 1 minute period it takes when both drives are connected is not at all unusual.

(This is another reason - albeit a minor one - why we highly recommend the installation of removable HDD/SSDs (mobile racks) for desktop PCs when an available bay (3 1/2" or 5 1/4") is present on the case. It's a highly desirable hardware configuration for most desktop PC users. And the add'l cost to set up this configuration is quite modest.)

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Another option, instead of a second internal HDD, is to buy one or more external ones but not plug it/them in until Windows is up and running. That's what I do, I have three of them. Contains all my data plus two backups. Or buy an HDD dock.

Less hassle than fitting removable racks in your PC, I don't recall seeing that idea being recommended very often on THF.

 

[ArtPog]

The beauty of installing removable HDD/SSDs in a desktop PC is that the user can easily work with multiple drives each effectively isolated from each other (when desired) containing different operating systems (if desired) and accommodating different storage needs.

Through a simple turn of a mobile rack's keylock mechanism or pressing its power switch the user can thus boot to this drive or that drive without the need for any "bootloader" or any other multi-booting software, as well as avoiding the need (in most cases) to access the motherboard's BIOS to change the boot priority order in order to boot to this or that particular HDD assuming the user is working with different OSs.

With removable HDD/SSDs the desktop PC users have an UNLIMITED number of drives to work with should they choose without the need for opening their computer cases to install the drive in the machine. Again, each removable drive is isolated from the other drives at the user's option.

We've been working with removable hard drives for about 15 years now and have installed or helped user's install hundreds of these devices over those years. By & large we've found this desktop PC hardware configuration a most desirable one for the great majority of desktop PC users. And we've found that the only regret virtually every desktop PC user of these devices has had is that they didn't install them sooner!

These mobile racks come in basically two types of configurations - some are two-piece affairs - the mobile rack itself and the inner tray or caddy (in which the hard drive (HDD or SSD resides) that slides into the rack. They come in all-aluminum models or a combination of aluminum-plastic, or all-plastic, ranging in price from about $15 to $50. A Google search for "removable hard drive mobile racks" will result in a wealth of information on these products and their vendors.

For many years we've been primarily using the Athena Power (SNT) MR-125B mobile rack. See...http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817123302
It's an all-plastic model but has proven very reliable for us. What we particularly liked about it (aside from its reliability and reasonable cost of about $15 - $20) is that rather than use an keylock mechanism where one needs the key to turn the power on or off the device it has a simple push button to do so. The removable tray which contains the drive is equipped with a simple push-to-release lever that easily physically connects or disconnects the tray from the rack. So changing from one storage drive to another "on the fly" is a piece of cake while the system is running. Unfortunately for us Newegg no longer carries this item and I've been scrambling around trying to find them at reasonable prices. We've been experimenting with other mobile racks but I haven't found one yet I like as much as the Athena Power model.

There is NO "hassle of any consequence in fitting removable racks" to one's desktop PC. The installation of these devices is simplicity itself - no more difficult than installing an optical drive. After the rack is installed you just plop the HDD or SSD into the removable tray (caddy), make two simple connections (power & data cable), and slide the tray into the mobile rack. Understand that when you install a removable HDD/SSD device that's it. You're not installing/removing the rack itself. It's a permanent part of the PC in exactly the same way one's optical drive is. With the growing popularity of SSDs (2 1/2" drives rather than the usual 3 1/2" HDDs) many new mobile racks are coming on the market to accomodate that type of disk. Many of these devices that are specifically specifically designed for 2 1/2" drives (SSDs) are one-piece affairs (no removable tray) that can frequently accommodate multiple drives. In this type of device the SSD itself is inserted or removed in the rack.

Naturally one's desktop PC must contain at least one vacant 5 1/4" (or 3 1/2") bay to accommodate the removable HDD/SSD device. That's pretty much the only requirement.