HDD not detected in BIOS. Help.

[mallenwho]

Running ASUS z97 Expert, trying to connect a Seagate Barracuda 1tb to partition before formatting. New drive. Drive spins but cannot be seen in bios or disk manager. Already have installed 128gb Kingston SSD and 2tb Barracuda installed.

tried different sata ports and sata cables. Currently have it in the hot swap bay with it spinning but not connected.
Yesterday i managed to fix my legacy problem of Optical drive not detected, by manually fixing the "corrupted registry entries" which instantly fixed the optical drive. HDD wasn't even spinning before that, so that has done something. But the drive is still not detected by BIOS or Windows...

 

[chesteracorgi]

The fact that it is not detected in the BIOS is a problem. The BIOS should detect the HDD regardless of whether it is partitioned or formatted. I would try to see if a program like Partition Wizard could see the HDD, and if it can then I'd use it to partition and format the HDD. You can get the free version of Partition Wizard at download.com.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there mallenwho,

Just unplug your secondary HDD and put the new one in the same slot with the same cables. If the issue persists, then I guess you should contact the HDD manufacturer and eventually RMA the drive.
I doubt that you will be able to access it with some sort of software if the drive does not appear in BIOS.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[mallenwho]

Doesn't help.
I've plugged it into my external bay, my hot swap bay, my optical drive cables and my boot drive cables. when in the boot drive the computer panics with a lack of boot drive, but the other drive isn't there.

I RMAd it and they said it was DoA. They gave me a new one, and same problem.
So either I'm the 0.00001% of people who get two dead drives with a less than 1% failure rate, or something is up with my firmware or registary.

I followed this help (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060) to get an identical problem resolved for my optical drive, where by changing it in registary it showed up in bios, but i don't know how to modify that procedure to work for the hard drive also.

 

[D_Know_WD]

This is strange indeed. You can try resetting your BIOS settings: http://www.howtogeek.com/131623/how-to-clear-your-computers-cmos-to-reset-bios-settings/
It will not hurt to attach the drive to another system. This way you will completely rule out the possibility of a HDD problem.

D_Know_WD

 

[chesteracorgi]

You could consider reflashing your BIOS. Although the BIOS detects the other drives it may have an issue with that particular HDD.

 

[mallenwho]

nope. different computer, same story. (also windows 8 on an asus motherboard - z97 this time. not sure what that means to anything)

Unless in bios it's listed under "denied" in boot options, it isn't there.

I really don't know how to flash my bios or am sure whether i want to.

Update: I tried Seagate's own DiskWizard software. couldn't find it either.
and if it's a compatibility issue with seagate and asus, it isn't. i have another of this model drive already running as mass storage, although i installed that one december 2013

 

[D_Know_WD]

After the HDD is not recognized on another computer as well, then I guess there is something wrong with the HDD.

D_Know_WD

 

[Sp00kie]

It could be that your sata cable or header is shorting and destroying the drives. When you get the next one, try connecting it to a different computer first.