[SOLVED] Don’t know how to add back pre-existing drives with data

[Clarkylc]

So as I was messing with my computer today, I happened to accidentally break my boot drive.
So I found an old HDD and reinstalled windows on there, however I would like to have my other two harddrives which I had before the incident work as I had many games on them that would take ages to install.
Is it possible to to use these pre-existing drives with the data still intact?
Because currently I don’t know how to add the drives back.
Thanks

 

[rgd1101]

and what exactly did you do to break them?

full system spec?

 

[Clarkylc]

and what exactly did you do to break them?

full system spec?

I only broke one hard drive(bent the pins, cable won’t stay in) and it was the boot drive, the others are fine that’s why I want to use them again.
My specs off the top of my head are:
I7 7700k
Gtx 1070
Msi z270 gaming pro carbon
1 SSD (undamaged prexisting data)
1 broke SSD
2 hardrives(one new where I installed windows, one old with my old data)

I would like the undamaged SSD and HDD to be useable again (they are unrecognised) with the data intact

 

[rgd1101]

is the ssd m.2?
try different slot/port/power cable?

 

[rickypicky5]

So as I was messing with my computer today, I happened to accidentally break my boot drive.
So I found an old HDD and reinstalled windows on there, however I would like to have my other two harddrives which I had before the incident work as I had many games on them that would take ages to install.
Is it possible to to use these pre-existing drives with the data still intact?
Because currently I don’t know how to add the drives back.
Thanks

Are the other two hard drives connected to the motherboard? Are the other two hard drives connected to your power supply?

If they are, does your BIOS recognize the two hard drives? If the BIOS does not recognize/see them, you may need to clear CMOS, or reset your BIOS to factory defaults in order to see them. After you do that, reboot and see if your BIOS recognizes the two hard drives. if your BIOS does see them now, let it boot to windows and bring up a File Explorer. Windows should recognize them now and assign them drive letters, like may "D" and "E".

The "games" are another matter. When you install software on a Windows computer, your Windows registry gets modified. Since your booting off a fresh install of Windows 10, your registry (on the new boot disk) will not have registry entries for your games, therefore I don't think you'll be able to play them. Unfortunately, I think you'll need to reinstall the games. After reinstalling the games, you may be able to retain any progress you've made in games by copying the appropriate files from your other drives back to the new boot drive. You should maybe Google that, on a game by game basis, to determine if this can be done.

Good luck!

 

[Clarkylc]

Thank you all for the help, but I may as well start over with these empty hard drives since most of my games data’s on the steam cloud anyway
Thank you

 

[rickypicky5]

You're very welcome!