Hard drive not seen when connected via SATA but is seen when in USB dock

Mr Inohk

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Sep 16, 2015
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I have a WD Blue WD10EZEX 1 TB drive that has Windows 10 installed on it. When I connect it to any motherboard (tried 3) via SATA, the board doesnt see it at all. When I connect it via a Thermaltake BlacX Duet USB Dock it works fine, and will even boot. Any suggestions as to how I might get this thing working on SATA again?
 
Solution
I am totally at a loss as to what else the problem could be. The only thing that makes sense to me is if you aren't plugging in both the data and power cable. Or you are plugging it into a SATA port that's turned off in the bios. Last option is if the drive is dead, which it can't be if it's seen in the dock.

Mr Inohk

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Sep 16, 2015
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Let me be a bit more detailed then

When connected via SATA, the BIOS will not detect it. The drive receives power as it would normally and spins up just fine, but the BIOS acts as though nothing is plugged in and will simply boot to BIOS configuration or say there is no bootable device (depending on the board). Under the same circumstances all of my other drives work perfectly fine, in the same ports and everything.

When connected via a USB dock the drive is detected and functions properly. The BIOS will boot into it if no SATA drive is available or it is selected manually. The OS is usable.

The system specs seem to be irrelevant as i've tested on 3 separate, very different, systems with the same results on each. Here are the specs of 2 of the 3 systems

System 1 (the system this drive came from)

Mobo: Gigabyte F2A78M-HD2
CPU: AMD A10-7870k
RAM: 4x2 GB kit G.skill Ripjaws X
GPU: nvidia GTX 750

System 2 (my personal computer)

Mobo: Asrock H97m-pro4
CPU: Intel Core i5 4690k (I'm aware the above board can't overclock; I made a mistake)
Ram: 2 separate kits of 4x2 GB G.skill RipjawsX for 16 GB
GPU: nvidia GTX 950

System 3 is a Mac pro of sorts (I think 2012? It's not the trashcan) and remains a mystery to me since I have no access to it myself. I tested the drive on it under the supervision of it's owner.

EDIT: There are no M.2 drives in any of the tested systems. Thats a bit out of my budget
 
If that drive was partitioned/formated on USB dock, it might be in some non-standard partitioning configuration.
That could make drive non-bootable, when connected directly to motherboard sata ports.

But it still should be detected in BIOS/storage devices section.
 

Mr Inohk

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Sep 16, 2015
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It was partitioned and formatted during the Windows 10 installation while plugged into a SATA port. It is also completely undetected by the BIOS.

I have tried to move the data to another hard drive. It works-ish. The OS boots but eventually stops at a black screen with a mouse after the loading animation finishes

EDIT: Move the data while on the USB dock I meant
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
If the drive works in USB but not internal my first guess is that you aren't plugging it in correctly or have a bad cable. Make sure both the power and data cable are in tight. Try a different data cable in case the one you are using is bad.
 

Mr Inohk

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Sep 16, 2015
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I've gone through and done that. I don't think I'm plugging it in wrong since I keep plugging in another drive in it's place (for unrelated reasons) the same way with the same cables and everything
 

Mr Inohk

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Sep 16, 2015
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The drive was functional at one point. During that time it was in normal use as the boot and storage drive. It only started doing this after being flown overseas. I didnt think that would be too important considering the drive still works under USB
 

Mr Inohk

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Sep 16, 2015
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Yeah this thing has baffled me for weeks now. Thats why I came here in hopes of some insights into what might possibly be wrong
 

Mathias_20

Commendable
Jan 16, 2017
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Ok, try rightclicking on my computer-->manage
Then Storage or discmanager.

Does it show up as a uninitialzized disc?

If so, try right clicking the drive, not the volume.

Go to properties an tick on "allow caching of files and media.

There should be two boxes, i am talking about the top one.

Anyways that worked for me. Hope your problem was or is similar
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
He's mentioned it isn't seen in the bios, so that won't work. Until the bios sees it there is nothing you can do in windows to make it work.

A thought just occurred to me. Have you tried a different SATA port on the board? I haven't looked up your board to see if this is the case, but some boards disable SATA ports if an eSATA drive is plugged in. The odds of that happening on two different systems is pretty low, but I'd look at trying different ports to see if that helps.
 

Mr Inohk

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Sep 16, 2015
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I've tried multiple SATA ports on each board, and no eSATA drives are plugged in either. I even try switching the ports between the drive I'm using to boot windows and the broken(ish?) drive.

As a temporary solution I've used the USB dock to copy all of the files from the broken drive onto another drive I had laying about so the person who owns this has something to work with until we figure out whats up with this one
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
I am totally at a loss as to what else the problem could be. The only thing that makes sense to me is if you aren't plugging in both the data and power cable. Or you are plugging it into a SATA port that's turned off in the bios. Last option is if the drive is dead, which it can't be if it's seen in the dock.
 
Solution