Question Drives disappeared after botched Windows 10 installation

[AsadHabib]

Hi all,

I have an SSD and a normal dard drive with the SSD carrying my windows. I was trying to reinstall windows 10 and when i went into boot setup, it wouldn't let me install it on the drive that i had my windows on saying that it was in GPT format. I then followed an instruction online that basically told me to open up CMD, go to diskpart > list disk > select the ssd > clean > convert to MBR.

Once that was done i tried again but this time on pressing next on that partition the setup said 'Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.' I then basically followed this video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgQ-KP0Zh8U


Basically what it asked me to do it execute the following instuctions:

1. When the error occurs, press Shift+F10 to open CMD.
2. When the Command Prompt window opens, run these commands one by one: diskpart list disk select disk X (X: Select the system disk you use) clean create partition primary size=(my total ssd size)

format fs=ntfs
assign active
list volume
exit
cd d: (change directory to the USB flash drive)
xcopy d: c:/d /h /k (Copy all the Windows installation files from USB drive to C: drive)
3. You can now close Command Prompt and unplug the installation USB drive from computer and restart. After that, start the installation process again. This time error "We couldn't create a new partition" will not happen.

And its right, i restarted and suddenly i could install it there without an issue. Something to note here is that at this point before clicking next to install the hardrives i could still see my other drives that had my data of around 1tb combined.

After the setup finished and windows actually started, boom i can't see anything except the C drive. I went to task manager and yes my sata drive is still attached and is recognized there. Any idea how i can get that back?


Update: After looking for a solution for a while, i decided to just format my hardrive and reallocate the space. I wasn't able to diagnose the issue but it may have stemmed from the fact that windows converted my second hard drive to dynamic during setup for some reason.

 

[Bassplate]

Hi all,

I have an SSD and a normal dard drive with the SSD carrying my windows. I was trying to reinstall windows 10 and when i went into boot setup, it wouldn't let me install it on the drive that i had my windows on saying that it was in GPT format. I then followed an instruction online that basically told me to open up CMD, go to diskpart > list disk > select the ssd > clean > convert to MBR.

Once that was done i tried again but this time on pressing next on that partition the setup said 'Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.' I then basically followed this video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgQ-KP0Zh8U


Basically what it asked me to do it execute the following instuctions:

1. When the error occurs, press Shift+F10 to open CMD.
2. When the Command Prompt window opens, run these commands one by one: diskpart list disk select disk X (X: Select the system disk you use) clean create partition primary size=(my total ssd size)

format fs=ntfs
assign active
list volume
exit
cd d: (change directory to the USB flash drive)
xcopy d: c:/d /h /k (Copy all the Windows installation files from USB drive to C: drive)
3. You can now close Command Prompt and unplug the installation USB drive from computer and restart. After that, start the installation process again. This time error "We couldn't create a new partition" will not happen.

And its right, i restarted and suddenly i could install it there without an issue. Something to note here is that at this point before clicking next to install the hardrives i could still see my other drives that had my data of around 1tb combined.

After the setup finished and windows actually started, boom i can't see anything except the C drive. I went to task manager and yes my sata drive is still attached and is recognized there. Any idea how i can get that back?

I would go check if your Drives isn't located in DISK MANAGEMENT.
Right click on Windows logo and say Disk management and see if your drives isn't located there and see if your drives aren't unlocatted drives.
If you still don't see them go into BIOS and set your secondary boot order your Secondary Hardrive(Which in this case your drive that's missing)
or maybe use other SATA ports for your missing drive or Another thing is Check if windows updates(Maybe it could be an driver that's not functioning or maybe missing.

 

[AsadHabib]

I would go check if your Drives isn't located in DISK MANAGEMENT

It sort of is?

Here's how it appears there: https://pasteboard.co/J9EGdw5.png

Funny enough, i just plugged in my bootable windows usb and opened the boot setup again and all my drives are still there in the setup section as they were. I just can't see them when i open up the freshly installed windows.

 

[Bassplate]

I would go check if your Drives isn't located in DISK MANAGEMENT.
Right click on Windows logo and say Disk management and see if your drives isn't located there and see if your drives aren't unlocatted drives.
If you still don't see them go into BIOS and set your secondary boot order your Secondary Hardrive(Which in this case your drive that's missing)
or maybe use other SATA ports for your missing drive or Another thing is Check if windows updates(Maybe it could be an driver that's not functioning or maybe missing.

In BIOS i would suggest to set your missing drive to your secondary boot order in Bios.Your first boot order will be your Windows drive.
I also had this problem a few times on....and sometimes when i start my PC my drives is just missing then i leave my PC off for maybe 10 minutes and then ill power up again and my drives will appear back in place.

 

[AsadHabib]

Tried that, didn't work unfortunately. I did convert the SSD to MBR and it was GPT previously. Not sure if that had anything to do with this?

 

[Bassplate]

Tried that, didn't work unfortunately. I did convert the SSD to MBR and it was GPT previously. Not sure if that had anything to do with this?

I'm not quite Sure...$i know with drives that's different formats sometime windows don't reconise it and then you have to reconvert its Drive Format

 

[AsadHabib]

I'm not quite Sure...$i know with drives that's different formats sometime windows don't reconise it and then you have to reconvert its Drive Format

Ok wait sorry, the disk 0 that i thought was my hard drive isn't actually my hard drive. i changed sata ports for my sata drive and now i can see it under disk management as below:

https://pasteboard.co/J9I1xsV.png

as soon as i opened disk management it asked me to assign it MBR or GPT before windows disk manager can access it or something. should i do that? will that format the drive?

 

[AsadHabib]

I think i'm getting close. By using MiniTool Partition Wizard, i can see my drives: https://pasteboard.co/J9Iuznl.png

If you notice, no drive letter has actually been assigned to them which leads me to think that during the CMD process that i did earlier on something must have taken away their drive letter assignment and now they're invisible. Hope someone knows how to get to visible again without losing data.