Hard drives not appearing in windows 10 setup

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MattyBlackout

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Oct 27, 2015
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I built a Gaming PC for the first time yesterday, I'm trying to install
Windows 10 Pro 64bit, I get to the stage when you're prompted to select a storage device to install windows on, but neither of my 2TB Seagate Barracudas are appearing.

I have an MSI Z97 Gaming 3 motherboard...

Pls help
 
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Hi, are these new drives or old? are they formatted as GPT? Do you use any kind of RAID for the drives? are they detected in the BIOS? Is storage mode in BIOS set to AHCI or IDE?
 
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They are brand new, I literally got them yesterday.
I think they're MBR but I'm not certain and I have no idea how to check. (Sorry I'm a total noob when it comes to PCs) I don't have any kind of RAID set up either.

The storage mode in the BIOS is set to AHCI and the drives are detectable in the BIOS.

 
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You might just need to format them.

During the Windows 10 install there is a point when you are asked to choose either an "upgrade" or "custom" install.

ximg_542c29621f9a4.png.pagespeed.ic.AY4S2zwVFz.png



If you choose the custom install you will be taken to a page that should show two available unformatted drives.



It should look like this:

ximg_542c296992937.png.pagespeed.ic.8ipfYbXjgX.png


From there select the unallocated drives and choose 'New' down at the bottom to format them as Windows accessible drives. After that choose next and continue with the installation.

Please keep us posted as to whether or not this works for you! :)
 
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Are there any other SATA ports on your motherboard that you can try connecting to? If it is showing up in the BIOS I'd be surprised if this was the problem, but every once and awhile it seems to take care of the issue.

Honestly the next thing I would do if switching the ports doesn't work would be to boot into Ubuntu from a USB and see if you can format the drives using gparted.

If you have a free 4GB or larger USB drive and you want to try Ubuntu here are the links:

How to create a bootable Ubuntu USB: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows
The actual Ubuntu download you'll need: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

 
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ok thx. When you boot the installation CD/USB there should be something similar like this:
3.png


Click Repair, then choose Troubleshoot, Select Advanced Options, Select Command Prompt.

At the command prompt, Type in DISKPART and press [Enter]
Type in LIST DISK and press [Enter]
The Bootable USB will also be listed as a Disk and you should be careful not to select this by accident.

Type in SELECT DISK X where X is the disk number and press [Enter]
Be careful here and make sure you select the correct disk as the steps following will format/wipe all data on it.

Type in CLEAN and press [Enter]
CLEAN removes all partitions and assigns them as unallocated.

After it says clean is succesful. Type in the following.
create partition primary align=1024 <ENTER>
format fs=ntfs <ENTER> (Will Take a While)
assign <ENTER>
active <ENTER>
exit <ENTER>
exit <ENTER>

After it completes, exit the INSTALL COMPLETELY and reboot.

Image from: http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/cleaning-up-a-drive-format-vs-secure-wipe-ssd-and-hdd/useofdiskpart/#UsingDISKPART
 
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well that does seem odd, since your motherboard is z97, and it's detected in BIOS, and the drives are new.. May I ask how you created your USB installation stick? Did you use Rufus? is it set to GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer?
58372d1424622042-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows-rufus.png
 
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Nope I didn't use Rufus, I just downloaded windows 10 from Microsoft's website and put it on a USB stick haha :)

Edit: I rebooted my PC and now both drives aren't being detected in the bios.
 
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My drives are not appearing in the BIOS. I've tried changing the SATA mode and I've tried every SATA port on my motherboard and my BIOS will not recognise my drives. I've even reset my BIOS to factory defaults but nope it still doesn't work. Pls help I'm starting to think I've got a faulty motherboard or something.
 
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If your drives were recognized in the BIOS, but now they are not, it could indicate a faulty motherboard. Unplug the computer, take out the CMOS battery for about 5-10 minutes. then put it back in and power up the computer. Then see if the drives are recognized in the BIOS.

Do you have access to another computer that you could use to initialize and format the new drives?
 
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Here is a link showing how to initialize drives. Name the drive you plan to install the OS on the C drive, and the other drive D or higher, not A or B.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1227647/how-to-initialize-and-format-a-new-disk-for-use-in-windows

Edit: Now that I think about it, if you are using another computer to initialize the new drives, it may not let you assign C to the drive, since that computer will already have a C drive. In that case name it something other than the drive(s) already in that computer, and change it to C once it is in your new computer. It has been a while since I have initialized new drives, so maybe someone with more recent experience can chime in here.
 
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sorry to hear that the 2TB drives gone undetected.

since you've already tried initialize the disks on another PC to GPT without problem and also reset the BIOS/changed SATA ports/cables, I would RMA the board.
 
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dfk: As far as I can infer, Matty has not yet tried to initialize the drives on another computer. He asked me how to do this and I provided him a link, but he only replied concerning taking out the CMOS battery.

The drives need to be initialized in order for them to be recognized. Earlier this year I installed a new HDD for a friend, and the computer could not see it nor allow me to format it until I first initialized it using the procedure described in the link.

Edit: That was on a Windows Vista OS. Maybe things have changed for newer Windows versions, I could be wrong about having to initialize first.
 
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